A MAJORITY of Irish people welcome the EU/IMF bailout but believe the country has surrendered its sovereignty in the process, according to the latest Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll.
When asked if they welcomed the provision of EU/IMF support or not, 51 per cent said they welcomed it, while 37 per cent said they did not and 12 per cent said they did not know.
Asked if they believed that Ireland had surrendered its sovereignty in accepting the bailout, 56 per cent said that it had, while 33 per cent said it had not and 11 per cent had no opinion.
Fianna Fáil voters are most supportive of the EU/IMF bailout and a majority of them did not believe Irish sovereignty had been surrendered in the process.
Fine Gael and Labour voters also backed the bailout but believed that sovereignty had been surrendered, while a clear majority of Sinn Féin voters rejected the bailout and said sovereignty had been infringed.
Overall attitudes to the EU appear to have changed only marginally as a result of the bailout.
Voters were asked whether in the current crisis it was better to be part of the EU or not. They were asked the same question in September 2009, just before the second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
The responses, compared to September 2009, were: Better to be part of the EU: 69 per cent (down two points); better not to be part of the EU: 22 per cent (up four points); no opinion: 9 per cent (down two points).
The poll was held on Monday and Tuesday of this week among a representative sample of 1,000 voters aged 18 and over, in face-to-face interviews at 100 sampling points in all 43 constituencies. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 per cent.
When asked whether last week’s Budget was broadly fair or unfair, a substantial majority expressed the view that it was unfair; 68 per cent said that it was unfair, 27 per cent said it was fair and 5 per cent had no opinion.
Asked what they thought of the alternative approaches to the budget deficit put forward by the Opposition parties, the Labour approach to tax increases and spending cuts was the most popular.
A budget adjustment involving 75 per cent spending cuts and 25 per cent tax increases, as favoured by Fine Gael, was backed by 29 per cent of voters, while a 50:50 adjustment favoured by Labour was backed by 42 per cent. Ten per cent favoured neither approach, while 19 per cent were in the Don’t Know category.
Asked whether they believed that an alternative Fine Gael-Labour government would have done a better job with the public finances than the current Government, the electorate is almost evenly divided, with 38 per cent saying that the alternative would have done a better job, 42 per cent saying that it would not and 20 per cent did not know.
