The Coalition can't do any worse, but the alternative Governmentneeds to do better, writes Mark Brennock.
Just when it seemed they couldn't go any lower, along comes another poll and another set of unwanted records for the Coalition.
Satisfaction with the Government has dropped another point, and the Taoiseach's approval rating has dropped five, bringing them - for the third poll in a row - to their lowest point since coming to power in 1997.
What's new this time is that Fianna Fáil's core vote has slipped two points to its lowest level since the Irish Times/MRBI poll series began 21 years ago.
The issue of "broken promises" brought the largest single reverse for the Government, reducing as it did its approval rating from 61 per cent before the May 2002 general election to 36 per cent in September 2002.
What is most alarming for the Government, however, is that a steady haemorrhage of support has continued ever since, bringing it from 33 per cent approval in October to 31 per cent in February, 28 per cent in May to 27 per cent now.
The Taoiseach's satisfaction rating has followed a similar pattern, falling by 18 points between the election and last September and a further 15 points in the last 12 months.
The latest slippage can be put down to a series of incidents which have caused continuing difficulties for the Government.
The handling of the Laffoy Commission inquiry into child abuse, the continuing delays in infrastructure projects - notably Luas - and the continuing warnings of a difficult forthcoming budget may all have contributed.
Mr Ahern will take some comfort from the finding that despite sustained media denunciation of his handling of that Hello! wedding, the voters don't seem very worked up about it.
Seven out of 10 say the affair made no difference to their opinion of him, with just a quarter saying it lowered their opinion of him (and most of those can be presumed not to have been fans in the first place).
The Progressive Democrats meanwhile sail along steadily, rising 1 point to 5 per cent, their leader's personal rating down a relatively modest four points to 41 per cent.
However, a striking poll finding is that despite the unprecedented collapse in Fianna Fáil support and the persistent unpopularity of the Government, no opposition party has succeeded in defining itself as the focus for the disillusioned.
Fine Gael's two-point increase to 22 per cent is merely a modest recovery from a disastrous poll performance last May.
Enda Kenny's satisfaction rating has risen three points, but his dissatisfaction level has gone up by 5 points.
In general, Fine Gael's position is not much different from what it was with Michael Noonan as leader and towards the end of John Bruton's stewardship. Mr Bruton, however, generally scored higher personal approval ratings than either of his successors.
Labour in contrast is retaining significant gains it has made since the general election.
It received an artificially high six-point boost to 22 per cent in last May's poll, which was taken in the immediate aftermath of a party conference which generated positive publicity.
However, its position in this poll of 19 per cent is six points higher than in the general election and shows a steady upward trend since then. The party had a consistent 12 per cent showing in three Irish Times/mrbi polls leading up to the last general election.
The Green Party remains unchanged at four points but is down from the heights of 8 per cent it achieved when its deputies had a particularly high profile during last autumn's Nice Treaty referendum campaign.
Sinn Féin's gain of one point to 10 per cent is virtually insignificant in itself.
However, the party did score 9 per cent support in each of the other four polls in this series carried out since the general election, suggesting that it has consolidated at a position above its election performance of 7 per cent.
Sinn Féin may be poised to make further gains.
Next year's local elections offer it a crucial opportunity to get potential Dáil candidates into local authority seats, thus raising its profile.
With some cautious optimism that a "war is over" statement may be forthcoming from the IRA in the next few weeks, the party may be in a position to move further into the mainstream while retaining the radical edge to its image that can win over disillusioned and younger voters.
This makes predictions about the composition of the next government more complex.
The most commonly identified alternative - of Fine Gael, Labour and the Green Party - now has combined support of 45 per cent, giving it a 10-point lead over the Fianna Fáil/PD combination.
This is a dramatic reversal of the 2002 general election result where support for Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats combined was 46 per cent compared to 37 per cent for this alternative.
Sinn Féin has just a little over three years to neutralise the reason given by all other Dáil parties for not considering it as a government partner - association with an active IRA.
If the republican movement can complete this political transformation, build on its current 10 per cent and, most importantly, translate this into seats, it may find itself in a powerful negotiating position.
For those parties which want to put a halt to its gallop, the task is one of definition. They must be able to tell voters what they stand for in a way that voters can understand. The opposition stating that it will provide better management, or the Government declaring that it stands for "delivery" of good things is not enough.
Delivery, said Britain's Industry Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, this week in the context of New Labour's current internal debate, is what pizza companies do.
Or as their Welsh Secretary Peter Hain urged in the Guardian newspaper: "We have to come across less as managers and technocrats and more as a government inspired by a set of values and goals."
The same surely applies here to a Government which appears to be lurching from mini-crisis to mini-crisis without an obvious direction, and to Fine Gael in particular.
Fine Gael has certainly grabbed attention in recent weeks with its declaration that it would not give public servants their benchmarking awards without getting public service reform first
Tying such declarations into a coherent set of what Peter Hain called "values and goals" is Fine Gael's task if it is to form the core of an alternative government.
Otherwise, there are plenty of potential coalition partners waiting in the wings to put Fianna Fáil back into power once more.