Sir, – It is somewhat bemusing that Ian Glen (December 16th) regards a 4 point gain as statistically insignificant when talking about Fine Gael's rise in the Irish Times Ipsos MRBI poll to a formidable 30 per cent level.
He invokes a basis of a 95 per cent confidence level and a margin of error of 3 per cent for his assertion. However, if a party were to go from 4 per cent to 0 per cent in such a poll, some might regard that as statistically insignificant, using the above logic, but obviously in common sense terms that would be a totally disastrous result that would lead commentators to herald the imminent demise of that given party.
Essentially, Fine Gael has gone up in the poll to an extent equivalent to what the Progressive Democrats or Green Party would have been typically satisfied with as its entire poll result. – Yours, etc,
JOHN KENNEDY,
Knocknashee,
Goatstown,
Dublin 14.