'No panic' in Fine Gael after disastrous opinion poll
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has seen his satisfaction rating dropped from 41% to 34% in a new poll. Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire
Fine Gael politicians insist there is no panic within the party after a new opinion poll put the party at a record low of 15% support.
A Sunday Times/Behaviour & Attitudes poll carried out between March 28 and April 4 saw Fine Gael plummet to historically low levels in a week during which the main Opposition party picked up a significant bounce in support following controversy over the Government's ending of the eviction ban.
Sinn Féin saw a five-point surge in its approval rating, bringing them to a record high of 37%, while Fine Gael dropped from 23% last month to just 15%.
However, sources within the party insist there is little panic over the poll, with senior sources saying there is still likely to be up to 18 months before an election and there is "plenty of time" to change voters' minds.
"It's not a good poll, but it is only one at the moment," a source said.
Fine Gael sources have said they are not worried about the fact that such a polling number would make reaching even 25 seats in the next Dáil difficult, arguing that it is a single poll and not a larger trend.
However, the party has only posted a polling number of 25% or higher in one poll since December 2021.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the poll showed that housing is at the top of the list of concerns with voters.
Over half — 57% — of people surveyed said homelessness and the lack of local authority housing was one of the most important issues facing the country.
Health was top of the list for 48% of people, while 32% said household bills were their top priority.
The Government says it has focused energies and resources on solving all three of these problems, but the ending of the no-fault eviction moratorium, coupled with the release of figures showing that nearly 9,000 notices of termination were issued in the second half of 2022, proved to be unpopular with the public.
One issue that Fine Gael members may be worried about is that their party has taken the backlash of the decision.
Fianna Fáil has weathered the storm better than their Coalition partners in this poll, despite holding the housing ministry, seeing their support rise by one point to 21%.
The Green Party also saw a rise by one point to 6%, while the Labour Party maintained its support at 4%.
The Social Democrats' approval also remained unchanged at 4%, as did Solidarity/People Before Profit at 2%, while Aontú saw its support rise to 2%.
A Fianna Fáil source said that the poll was "not something they'd read massively into" and said that the general appetite among political parties for a general election was low at the moment.
A Sinn Féin source, however, said that the party would like to see an election soon, and pointed out that their high polling could see them winning enough seats to form a government without Fine Gael or Fianna Fáil.
In a speech on Sunday at the party's Easter Rising commemoration, leader Mary Lou McDonald said that Sinn Féin is "ready to lead".
"Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have been in power for far too long," she said.
The Coalition parties combined saw their overall support drop from 52% in February to 42% now, and also saw satisfaction drop from 41% to just 34% — the lowest level since the Government was formed in 2020.
Ms McDonald returns to the top of the most popular party leader list at 48%, as Fianna Fáil's Micheál Martin took a tumble from 52% to 45%.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar's satisfaction rating dropped to 34% from 41%.
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