Ian McShane managing director TNS mrbiToday's is the final Irish Times/TNS mrbi poll in advance of the local and European elections being held on Friday June 11th. As such, some comments on the manner in which the poll findings should be interpreted are warranted.
Rather than representing a flawless prediction of the precise share of first-preference votes each candidate will receive next Friday, these opinion polls provide us with an estimate as to what the likely voting behaviour of the electorate would have been if the election had been held last Tuesday and Wednesday.
There are a number of key points to be made in relation to today's figures. Firstly, fieldwork for the survey was conducted a full nine to 10 days before votes were to be cast.
It is highly likely, if not probable, that levels of support for the various Euro candidates will change between now and then.
This point is best illustrated by way of a comparison between levels of candidate support measured in the last poll of 18th/19th May, and today's poll, which was conducted two weeks later (Table I).
Here, we can see noticeable shifts in the first-preference figures recorded for Kathy Sinnott in the South, Avril Doyle in the East and Pearse Doherty in North West, for example.
Indeed, it would appear to make sense that Doyle's support might have dropped over the period in question, given that Fine Gael party strategists will have recognised the need to strike a more even balance between Doyle's and running mate McGuinness's share of the vote based on our poll of two weeks ago.
Similarly, Sinnott's campaign in the South seems to have taken alight in recent weeks, with intense media speculation as to her chances of taking a seat.
The second caveat applying to all such polls relates to the sampling variance resulting from the fact the survey questions are asked of a representative sample of 500 electors within each of the four Euro constituencies.
In effect, the candidate figures produced in each constituency can be deemed to be accurate to within approximately + 4.5 percentage points.
So, for example, most of the leading candidates in Dublin were, as of last Tuesday/Wednesday, in a statistical dead-heat, with seven candidates vying for the four seats.
This does not, of course, mean that we cannot draw sensible conclusions from today's findings, rather that we need to be clear that they are not predictions per se.
Dublin
Gay Mitchell for Fine Gael has registered solid levels of first-preference support in both polls conducted.
While peaking in the south of the constituency, he still appears to be attracting support from across all areas in Dublin, and is holding his own against the Labour Party and Sinn Féin amongst the blue-collar working constituency.
Given the reasonable levels of transfers which seem to be coming to him from across the political divide, it is most improbable that Mitchell will not now take a seat, quite possibly on the first count.
With both polls indicating a combined Labour Party vote in the order of one full quota, the question now appears to be which of the two party candidates is most likely to come through on polling day.
Bacik has clearly built up a degree of momentum over the last couple of weeks, and can by no means be ruled out over De Rossa.
Patricia McKenna is still registering very much at the lower end of the scale, and would need to produce a first-preference vote closer to 12 per cent on June 11th if she is to retain her seat.
Although Royston Brady and Eoin Ryan are quite evenly matched at the moment, Ryan appears to be gaining more second preferences than is Brady, a dynamic which could prove crucial in the end.
If the election had been held earlier this week therefore, the most likely outcome would have been a seat apiece for Mitchell and De Rossa, with the final two decided between Brady, Ryan and McDonald.
North West
North West is shaping up to be one of the most intriguing of the Euro constituencies, with five candidates practically inseparable from each other on first preferences and a sixth, Dana Rosemary Scallon, by no means to be written off.
Madeleine Taylor Quinn has yet to make the type of impact she would have liked and, if she had captured just 8 per cent of first preferences during an election held early last week, is likely to have been the first of the main candidates eliminated.
Based on a limited analysis of second-preference transfers, it would appear that the proportion of second preferences transferring from Taylor Quinn to running mate Jim Higgins could be improved upon between now and election day, if Fine Gael is to optimise Higgins's standing in later counts.
If Dana Rosemary Scallon does in fact obtain a share of first preferences as low as 10 per cent, her transfers will be crucial in deciding the destination of the three seats.
Of all remaining candidates, this poll would indicate that Marian Harkin would likely have been the single greatest beneficiary of Scallon's transfers, positioning her neck and neck with Higgins, McDaid and Ó Neachtain. Suffering from a dearth of transfers, Doherty is most likely to have been eliminated next, ultimately deciding the fate of the three seats.
Based on these figures, it is impossible to identify which one of the remaining four candidates would have lost out, although the indications are that Doherty, if eliminated, would have transferred a lot more heavily to McDaid than to any other candidate.
South
With a quota in this constituency of 25 per cent, both Brian Crowley and Simon Coveney would have been well placed to take the first two seats here if the election had been held at any time over the last two weeks or so.
Indeed, Crowley is likely to have made it home on the first count, with as much as a quarter of his surplus actually transferring to Coveney, further strengthening the latter's chances of election. Brendan Ryan's public pronouncements concerning Kathy Sinnott's candidature do not appear to have strengthened his own chances of election, and it would seem that the Green Party is also unlikely to make a significant breakthrough at this stage.
Even if the election had been held the day after this opinion poll had been conducted, it would have been impossible to call the last seat between Independent Kathy Sinnott and Fianna Fáil's Gerry Collins.
It is likely, however, that the fate of the final seat would have been decided on the basis of transfers from David Cullinane of Sinn Féin. The question is whether his preferences would have favoured sitting MEP Gerry Collins, or the anti-establishment Sinnott.
East
In 1999, Jim Fitzsimons and Liam Hyland each secured 17 per cent of all first preferences in what was then the four-seat Leinster Euro constituency. With the party vote of 34 per cent perfectly split, both Fianna Fáil candidates were elected.
That same election saw Fine Gael secure precisely the same share of first preferences as Fianna Fáil, with Avril Doyle taking 20 per cent of all first preferences, and 14 per cent opting for Alan Gillis. The gap between the two Fine Gael candidates was too great, and Gillis was beaten by Nuala Ahern of the Greens for the final seat.
Five years later, and with the East constituency reduced to just three seats, there is a chance that Fine Gael's vote management strategy could win that party two of the three seats this time around, and that Fianna Fáil may pick up just one through Liam Aylward.
Both Fine Gael candidates are attracting solid second-preference transfers, and Peter Cassells of Labour will need to produce a first preference vote around the mid-teens to be in with a chance for the last seat. Based on the findings from these two polls, Cassells is well in the hunt in this regard, and will no doubt be campaigning furiously over the final week of the campaign.
Mary White still lags behind, and has a serious battle on her hands if she is to retain the Green Party seat, while Dwyer of Sinn Féin is likely to suffer from a lack of second preferences, even if he does poll more strongly than today's 10 per cent.
Local elections
Voting intentions in the local elections have shifted only marginally over the last two weeks (Table II), with both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael likely to lose seats, Labour to make some gains, and Sinn Féin emerging as the real winners, albeit based upon a very low share of the local authority vote in 1999.
With government satisfaction at 34 per cent and Fianna Fáil languishing on a national core vote of just 31 per cent, opposition parties know that while the European election results are important, the real prize next Friday will be the number of local election seats won, and the priming of fresh talent for the next general election in two to three years.