It feels like not a day goes by without some newspaper or online article running a poll in which they try to discover what level of support political figures and parties have. Usually these figures focus only on support of parties and in my experience, are vague and uninteresting. This is where Opinions.ie Market Research step in!
We not only analysed an overview of the voting intentions but broke the results down into sub-categories to show voting intentions by gender, income levels and residency in Ireland to name but a few. I will outline the most interesting results from our ‘State of the Nation’ and detail some of the more striking results.
In our monthly ‘State of the Nation’ survey, we discovered that Fine Gael were the most popular party in Ireland, 40% more popular than Fianna Fail and 50% more popular than Sinn Fein. Independents are as likely to get the same support as Fianna Fail candidates if an election was held today. A noteworthy aspect of this research is that 8% of all the people surveyed stated they would vote for a political party that was not mentioned. As there was no ‘undecided’ option to choose from, it could be said that some of these 8% are unsure of who they would vote for, thus ensuring that the popularity of some of the parties would increase.
Interestingly, it would appear that men have a far greater interest in politics than women, as 17% of women say they would not vote, more than twice as many as men (8%). Our analysis also shows that men are more likely to vote for Fine Gael (25%) than women (21%), and similarly, men are more likely to vote Fianna Fail (17%) than women (13%).
Further evidence proves that 18% of those living in households with annual incomes of under €50,000 would not vote, while only 8% of those in wealthier housholds would vote. This may be as a result of the general opinion in the country today that recent budgets and cutbacks are affecting those on lower incomes unfairly compared to those on higher incomes and the belief that no matter what party governs the country, this situation will not change.
However, households with an income of over €50,000 are twice as likely to vote for Fine Gael, while those on the lower income levels are twice as likely to vote for Sinn Fein. There are no other significant differences, as can be seen on the graph below.
Worryingly, 28% of people not born in Ireland but eligible to vote here, stated they would not vote in an upcoming election. This may be as a result of these people not feeling welcome in Ireland, lack of understanding for what each party’s ethos is or there may be a lack of interest in politics in general. However, as citizens of Ireland, there should be more action taken by parties and the Irish public in general to encourage these people to vote. On the flip side, these people should show more interest in the governing of the country as they will have to live with the results of the election as much as the person who has been living in Ireland all their life.
Overall, these survey findings are good news for Fine Gael TD’s and their supporters but if used correctly, these findings can prove beneficial to canvassers of all parties in understanding what demographic they should focus their attention on, were an election to be held today.
Note: Some of the results may differ from similar research in this field due to sample weighting, phrasing of questions, question structure, timing of research, and methodology of results analysed. This does not compromise the legitimacy or accuracy of this research…it’s just different!
The ‘State of the Nation’ survey methodology: It is a nationally representative survey of 1000 adults in Ireland, conducted between July 17th and 21st among a sample drawn from our 15,000 panel members using online questionnaires and consisted of a sample that matched the Irish population aged 18 plus by sex, age profile and region. This survey is commissioned by Opinions.ie Market Research to gain a greater insight into the opinions of Irish people on current affairs affecting the country.
Alan O Riordan
OPINIONS MARKET RESEARCH 