Irish Times poll results complicate the question of the future of Micheál Martin’s leadership of Fianna Fáil, writes Pat Leahy
Meanwhile, party leader Micheál Martin has successfully negotiated the transition from Taoiseach to Tánaiste, and though he sees his personal rating fall by four points today he is only a point behind Mary Lou McDonald and continues to run ahead of his government and his party.
The divergence in the fortunes of the two main parties of Government and their leaders also points to the inevitably complicated relationship they will have to navigate between now and the next election. After all, the two main partners in Government will be competing with each other for votes. That rivalry will have to managed.
Interestingly, some of the Sinn Féin decline is among younger people and a chunk of it at least appears to have transferred to the Social Democrats, who see support jump by three points to 5 per cent. While the data in the poll does not provide reasons for this it seems likely that a combination of the appeal of new Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns and perhaps an unease with Sinn Féin’s climate policies among younger people are connected to it.
Both Labour and the Green Party remain rooted at 4 per cent each. Labour does not really seem to be going anywhere, and a sustained Social Democrat surge would pose obvious threats to the party. The Greens have shipped a lot of criticism lately, but the question that faces the party is not what the Healy-Raes and Mattie McGrath think of it; it’s whether it can persuade voters who are concerned about climate change to vote for climate action.
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