Support for Fine Gael has slumped with just days to go before the general election, according to the final Irish Times/Ipsos B&A opinion poll of the campaign.
The Fine Gael share of the vote has fallen by six points in less than two weeks, reflecting a campaign that has been littered with missteps, and now trails both Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin.
As the parties embark on a frantic final four days of campaign, and with the three-way televised leaders’ debate scheduled for tomorrow night, the three largest parties are all within two percentage points of one another.
The poll results will heap pressure on Taoiseach and Fine Gael leader Simon Harris who was forced to apologise on Saturday for an encounter with a disability care worker in Co Cork on Friday evening.
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The poll results have better news for Fianna Fáil, which sees its share of the vote rise to 21 per cent, the first time that the party has led Fine Gael since Mr Harris became Taoiseach earlier this year.
The state of the parties, when undecided voters are excluded, and compared with the most recent poll on November 14th, is: Fianna Fáil 21 per cent (up two points); Sinn Féin 20 per cent (up one); and Fine Gael 19 per cent (down six).
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Among the smaller parties, the Green Party is at 4 per cent (up one); Labour 4 per cent (down one); Social Democrats 6 per cent (up two); People Before Profit 3 per cent (up one); Aontú 3 per cent (no change); Independents (including Independent Ireland) 17 per cent (down three).
Undecided voters, who are excluded from the above figures, are at 19 per cent, up by three points.
Satisfaction with the Fine Gael leader has also fallen since the beginning of the campaign. Mr Harris is down from 50 per cent to 46 per cent, marginally ahead of the Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin who is on 45 per cent (down one). The Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald and the Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman are both unchanged on 31 per cent and 21 per cent respectively. Satisfaction with the government is also down by four points, to 35 per cent.
The cost of living is the issue which will influence most voters (31 per cent), followed by house prices (18 per cent) and health 16 (per cent). A series of other issues will influence smaller numbers of voters – the economy (7 per cent), immigration (7 per cent), the cost of renting (6 per cent), climate (5 per cent), law and order (5 per cent) and tax (3 per cent).
While more than seven in 10 voters (71 per cent) say that they are now “fairly certain” how they will vote on Friday, 28 per cent say they are open to changing their minds or have not decided yet.
A large majority of voters (68 per cent) say that the parties have been “promising too much, with just 18 per cent saying they are “not promising enough”.
The poll was conducted among a representative sample of adults aged 18 years and upwards across 120 sampling points throughout all constituencies. Unlike most other opinion polls, The Irish Times/Ipsos B&A series is conducted through face-to-face sampling; personal in-home interviewing took place between November 20th and 23rd. The total number of interviews conducted was 1,200. The accuracy is estimated at plus or minus 2.8 per cent.
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