Survey to show views of Irish gay community

THE first significant study of the country’s 200,000-strong gay and lesbian community will likely reveal its growing political and spending clout.

In the past two weeks, extensive questionnaires have been delivered to gay and lesbian people with a view to analysing trends and views.

The Gay Community Network magazine hopes to complete and begin releasing the first verifiable and complete examination of Ireland’s gay population before Christmas.

It will examine the spending habits, earning patterns and political leanings of gay people and for the first time look at the community from the inside out, according to GCN editor Brian Finnegan.

“A lot of the research published in mainstream publications on gay issues have been to survey the attitudes of straight people to gay people, like the general public’s feelings on gay marriages,” he said.

“This is the other way around, it only talks to gay people and sees how they use the power they have, and that is the power in the market and politically.”

He says advertisers and political campaigners have found it difficult to measure the strength of Gay Ireland because of the traditional social taboos.

While the markets have become more aware of the community’s spending power in recent years, there has been a dearth of information on which to base coordinated campaigns.

He said: “This will look at how much gay people are earning, how much they spend, whether they have children or not, all things associated with spending habits and even questions on their political views.

“We hope to properly assess the strength of the market and what is the spending power of the gay market.”

GCN has brought in international market research company Out Now Consulting to undertake the study after its track record of similar projects globally.

GCN predicts one of the more interesting spin-offs from the study will be how it affects the attitudes and approaches of political parties to gay issues.

Mr Finnegan said gay people’s 30-year fight for equal rights has fostered a very political and vocal section of the electorate that has been ignored.

However, he feels this is changing and with the information it plans to make available through its research, canvassers could be courting the gay vote more.

“I noticed in a recent press release from the Green Party on same-sex marriages that it was targeted at the gay community — that is the first time I have ever seen a political party try to speak directly to gay people.

“In the 2007 general election, I think things are going to be very different and the political parties will be coming to the gay community more.”

In 1995, Out Now Consulting carried out limited research on the size of the country’s gay community. It estimated 6% of people were lesbian or gay.