Blog Posts

This update includes the new Red C poll for the Irish Sun. It becomes increasingly clear that Others and Independents are doing well over the last weeks and months, while Fine Gael support is clearly past its peak. Still, if we take into account the margins of error we cannot be entirely sure that Fine Gael support has dropped in the last few weeks. If more polls confirm the low estimate of 26% in the most recent Red C poll, we would be able to draw that conclusion.

This update includes the new Red C Research poll for the Sunday Business Post, published today. While the overall picture remains the same, it does become increasingly clear that Fine Gael has lost the momentum it gained in the second part of 2015. The party peaked in December and has been declining a little bit since then (although this is still within the uncertainty margin).

This update includes the last poll that was published yesterday night, by Millward Brown. Their fieldwork was actually conducted over a relatively long time period, from 25 January to 4th of February. Including these new figures does not substantially alter the Polling Indicator’s estimates. (Please note that Millward Brown did not release figures for the minor parties, at least not that I could find, so these figures remain unchanged.)

Today the Irish Poling Indicator was updated with two new polls, by Red C Research and Behaviour & Attitudes. Together with the Ipsos MRBI poll published earlier this week, these polls form a cluster of three that has been conducted early this week. On the one hand, this helps us to reduce random error associated with opinion research, but it also makes clear that there are structural differences between pollsters. For example, Red C research has Labour on 10%, while the other two pollsters have the party at 7 or 8%. This is not a one-off: Red C has consistently estimated Labour higher than other pollsters do.

This Polling Indicator has been updated with the newest Ipsos MRBI poll. It does not significantly alter our estimates of the parties’ standing. Independents/Others seem to do a bit better recently, but this increase in support is still within the margin of error.