Opinion

Deaglán de Bréadún: It's a numbers game as Sinn Féin see an opinion poll bounce

Recent opinion polls in the Republic show the average rating for Sinn Féin is up six points to 36 per cent. Pictured is Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald Photo: Brian Lawless/PA Wire.
Recent opinion polls in the Republic show the average rating for Sinn Féin is up six points to 36 per cent. Pictured is Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald Photo: Brian Lawless/PA Wire. Recent opinion polls in the Republic show the average rating for Sinn Féin is up six points to 36 per cent. Pictured is Sinn Féin President Mary Lou McDonald Photo: Brian Lawless/PA Wire.

THEY say a week is a long time in politics, so what would you call a year, or to put it more precisely: a year and two months?

That’s how long it is since Sinn Féin failed to take the lead position in an opinion poll about the next general election in the Republic of Ireland. A Red C survey dated June 26, 2021 and published in the Business Post put Fine Gael in first place on 30 per cent, with Sinn Féin coming second at 29, Fianna Fáil third on a modest 13 points and the rest of the parties ranging between two and five per cent.

At time of writing, a further 36 polls have been published, with the Shinners taking first place in every single one of them. In the first six of these surveys, between July 13 and September 18, 2021, the party scored an average of just over 30 per cent. But wait for it folks: there’s been a consistent, repeated bounce of late.

In the last eight polls available as I put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard), dated between May 10 and August 6 of this year, the average rating for SF is up six points to 36 per cent. In the same time-frame, Fine Gael scored between 18 and 23 points, with Fianna Fáil ranging from 14 to 24 per cent. As for the smaller parties, none of them scored more than five points: the Greens, third leg of the current coalition, varied between two and five; Labour ranged from three to five; the Social Democrats from zero to five; the hard-left People Before Profit/Solidarity scored between one and four points; Aontú (“Unite”), set up by anti-abortion members of Sinn Féin, varied from one to three per cent.

Members of the business and professional classes and indeed some others might not be happy reading this summary of the southern political situation, but it’s better to know in advance what may be coming down the line rather than waiting until after it has happened. I remember a senior Ulster Unionist Party adviser, in the days when David Trimble was UUP leader, mooting the possibility of an anti-Sinn Féin propaganda campaign by unionists which would be focused on certain elements in the south. He cited, as an example, “doctor’s wives in Tipperary”. I don’t know why male doctors would be considered less anti-republican than their wives. County Tipperary was presumably mentioned because it is a considerable distance from the border and might therefore be less sympathetic to northern-oriented republicans. However, Sinn Féin candidate Martin Browne received the second-highest number of first preferences in the last general election and ended up with a seat in the Dáil.

I note that Bob Dylan is playing at the 3Arena in Dublin on November 7, as part of his “Rough and Rowdy Ways Worldwide Tour”. If he wants to strike a topical note, he should perform The Times They Are A-Changin’, which was first released in January 1964, yet continues to 'hit the spot'.

It seems the only way that Mary Lou and her friends can be kept out of office is a resumption of the existing coalition, perhaps with one or two more parties and a handful of independents. The Greens lost all six of their Dáil seats in the 2011 general election but went on to win 12 in the last contest two years ago; however there’s no guarantee they will secure that number in the next outing, which is due by March 2025 at the latest.

Fianna Fáil’s performance is very hard to predict: if they have a bad day at the ballot box, then some elements of the party might prefer to join a coalition with Sinn Féin, assuming such an option is on the table. The rationale might be that teaming up previously with your old Civil War enemies was not good for FF’s republican image.

It doesn’t look like Fine Gael will do spectacularly well on election day either and the prospect that they might end up sitting across the Dáil chamber from Taoiseach McDonald may be keeping some of them awake at night. As for the smaller parties and independents, some might prefer an alliance with Sinn Féin: such an administration might be more stable and likely to implement left-wing policies. At the end of the day, to borrow an Albert Reynolds phrase, politics can be a numbers game.

Email: Ddebre1@aol.com; Twitter: @DdeBreadun