Sinn Féin support has slumped again while there has been a recovery for Fine Gael which is now level with Sinn Féin, according to the latest Irish Times/Ipsos B&A opinion poll.
Support for Independents, Fianna Fáil and most smaller parties is steady since the last poll in February of this year.
Asked which combination of parties they would prefer to form the next government, the most popular option was a continuation of the present Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael-Green combination which was nominated by 33 per cent. A Government led by Sinn Féin with neither Fianna Fáil nor Fine Gael was chosen by 20 per cent of voters.
With three weeks to go before votes are cast in the local and European elections, the results are likely to give a boost to the Fine Gael leader and Taoiseach Simon Harris but will be deeply worrying to Sinn Féin which sees another sharp decline in a trend that has been continuing for more than a year. Sinn Féin support falls by five points today, after a decline of six points in the last poll in February.
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Support for Sinn Féin has fallen most sharply among younger, urban, working-class voters, the data suggest.
The state of the parties, when undecided voters and those unlikely to vote are excluded, is as follows: Sinn Féin 23 per cent (down five); Fine Gael 23 per cent (up four); Fianna Fáil 20 per cent (no change).
Among the smaller parties, the Green Party is at 4 per cent (down one); Labour 5 per cent (up one); the Social Democrats 3 per cent (down one); Solidarity-People Before Profit 2 per cent (no change); Aontú 1 per cent (no change).
Independents are at 17 per cent (no change). Rounding may affect the totals.
Undecided voters — which are excluded from the above figures — have fallen sharply by six points to 19 per cent.
Voters were asked which party, if any, they would vote for in an immediate general election.
Though satisfaction with the Government has slipped by four points to 31 per cent, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin’s rating nudged up by two points to 46 per cent, making him the most popular party leader. Mr Harris debuts in the series with a 38 per cent satisfaction rating, two points higher than Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, who sees her rating slip by two points. Green leader Eamon Ryan gains a point to 21 per cent.
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Asked about the new Taoiseach, one-fifth of voters (20 per cent) said that they believe he will bring Fine Gael in “a new direction”, while 36 per cent said they expected him to be “more of the same”. The largest cohort — 38 per cent — of respondents, however, said that they were “waiting to hear what he has to say”.
The poll was conducted among a representative sample of adults aged 18 years and upwards across 150 sampling points throughout all constituencies. Personal in-home interviewing took place between May 11th and 15th, 2024. The total number of interviews conducted was 1,500. The sample size for this poll is larger than typical for Irish Times/Ipsos B&A polls to accommodate 500 interviews in each of the European Parliament constituencies, the results of which will be reported later this week. The accuracy is estimated at plus or minus 2.5 per cent.
