FARMING POLL 2015 - DATA: Enda Kenny still most popular party leader as Gerry Adams suffers

Despite his support dropping from 47% in 2014 to 36% in 2015, Mr Kenny remains the most popular party leader among farmers.

He polls highest across all age groups and among dairy farmers, among whom 45% back him for taoiseach.

Among the different age groups, he scores his highest levels of support with the 35 to 44 group, at 41%, and with the over 65s, at 43%. He also has stronger support among larger farmers, with 43% of those owning 120 acres or more.

Labour’s lowly position in the polls is echoed in the poll on party leaders, with just 3% backing Joan Burton as taoiseach, half the number who would vote for Renua leader Lucinda Creighton to fill the role.

While 19% back Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin for Taoiseach, with stronger backing among tillage and older farmers, support for Mr Adams as Taoiseach has fallen to 4% — down nine percentage points from last year.

While a different question was asked, it is still notable how the views of farms regarding support for leaders as Taoiseach compares with the findings for the B&A/ Sunday Times poll from last August. In that poll, Mr Kenny came behind Mr Martin, Ms Burton, and Mr Adams when people were asked if they were satisfied with the job being done by the main party leaders — albeit only seven percentage points behind the 39% satisfaction rating given to Mr Martin in that poll.

The majority of farmers also oppose Mr Adams being part of the next government, with 87% in the Irish Examiner/ICMSA poll saying they would not like to see either Mr Adams or Sinn Féin in government.

Those involved in tillage farming are most in support of Mr Adams — however, even they only reach 15% in favour.

Somewhat conversely, 69% of the people polled said they are in favour of a 32-county united Ireland, with 45% of respondents strongly in favour.

More male respondents (70%) are in favour than women respondents (65%), although there was little variation among the different age groups. The exact same percentage of people, 69%, backed the idea in both farm-only and off-farm income families.

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Survey methodology

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