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Sinn Fein see massive jump in support as government drops

Gerry Adams now leads Ireland’s second favorite party

PATRICK COUNIHAN,

IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Friday, April 20, 2012, 7:15 AM

Updated Friday, April 20, 2012, 7:15 AM

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Sinn Fein's President Gerry Adams

Photo by AFP/Getty

Sinn Fein are now Ireland’s second most popular party – as support for the Fine Gael-Labor Party coalition collapses.

An Irish Times opinion poll shows a major drop in support for the government in wake of the recent household charge furore.

The first poll, taken during the storm over water meters this week, has support for the Enda Kenny led government down by 14 per cent.

The Coalition now enjoys just 23 per cent support from the electorate while Fine Gael are down three per cent to 33 per cent and Labor are down six to 13 per cent.

Fianna Fail are also down, dropping one per cent to just 14 per cent support.

The big winners are Sinn Fein with Gerry Adams’ party now the second most popular outfit in the state, up six per cent to 21 per cent support.

Independents, up four to 19 points, have also gained from the recent government efforts to increase indirect taxation via water charges and household levies.

The paper reports that the core vote for the parties compared with the last Irish Times poll was: Fine Gael, 25 per cent (down four points); Labour, 10 per cent (down five points); Fianna Fáil, 11 per cent (down one point); Sinn Féin, 15 per cent (up two points); Green Party, 1 per cent (no change); Independents/Others, 13 per cent (up two points); and undecided voters, 25 per cent (up six points).

The new government rating is far lower than anything achieved by the Fianna Fáil-led governments during Bertie Ahern’s tenure from 1997 until 2008 while only the performance of the Brian Cowen government from November 2008 until February 2011 was worse.

Enda Kenny’s support has dropped by ten points to 42 per cent with Labor’s Eamon Gilmore down 14 points to 27 per cent, the lowest he has achieved as party leader.

A second Irish Times’Ipsos MRBI poll shows that 39 per cent of the Irish electorate are still undecided as to how they will vote in the European Fiscal Treaty referendum on May 31.

Just 30 per cent of voters said they will vote yes while 23 per cent said they will vote no with eight per cent stating they will abstain.

Nster.com

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179 Comments

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Curitiba | Apr 28, 2012, 07:09 AM EDT

Jacers: I was just reading your reply, but I think that we are descendend from the Celtic tribes who once formed the bulk of Europe, and who extended as far as what is now Turkey. However, the Irish, Scottish Gaels, Manx, Welsh Cornish and Bretons are the only surviving remnants of that once mighty culture. I think that the folk who were reputed to have been discovered in the Atlas Mountains were descendents of Irish people captured bhy Barbary Pirates. Baltimore wasn't the only raid; the pirates had been raiding European coasts as far as Iceland for hundreds of years. I think the people discovered were mixed heritage of Irish slaves and Barbary masters.

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Curitiba | Apr 28, 2012, 07:02 AM EDT

Hi Ciara, one thing that springs to mind is the fact that there are two governments on the island of Ireland. Two governments, for a population of 5 or 6 million people? Is there any point? Perhaps pooling resources and coming up with a combined economic strategy would be advantageous to the residents of Ireland in the form of reduced taxes and increased economic output. It's not like reuniting East and West Germany, or North and South Korea where one economy has been devastated by Communism. NI and ROI are both First World countries, have no border controls, no restrictions on where you live or work, so using allan07's marriage analogy, why not formalise this living in sin arrangement and have a registry office marriage? NI can move out of her mum's house (UK) and move in with ROI.

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ancavker | Apr 27, 2012, 02:08 PM EDT

allan:Just how dense are you? He was born in the U.S. of an Irish mother, (and probably Father) and returned to Ireland when he was 2 years of age. What part of that do you not understand?

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ciaradexy | Apr 27, 2012, 02:08 PM EDT

IrelandNorth, again youre telling lies! youve lived outside Ireland since the early 80s. Why do you keep changing your location?

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ancavker | Apr 27, 2012, 02:06 PM EDT

bythebay: De Valera spent about 18 months in the U.S. during the war of independence, when he was well in his 30's; that is the extent of his huge stay in the U.S. He was Irish, and a product of Ireland, his American birth had nothing to do with what you believe to be his sectarianism.

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esatdigiwank | Apr 27, 2012, 09:50 AM EDT

BtheB. the Fiscal treaty has as much to do with job creation for ordinary Irish as that L¤sbon treaty did. That utter bluff will be spun ad nauseum by the sellouts. What jobs are you thinking of? The 'imported 'hi-faluting jobs to this f¤iled state no doubt. That which require a Masters, skills in Swahili, Arabic and Malay... I'm glad I took my name off the vote register And got out of the emerald valley of tears .

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STEVENSTAR | Apr 27, 2012, 08:36 AM EDT

IrelandNorth | Apr 27, 2012, 06:43 AM EDT>>>> YOUR AMERICAN YOU TWAT.. NEVER HAVE I HEARD AN IRISHMAN SAYING DUBLIN EASTERN IRELAND ALL YOUR POSTS POINT TO YOU BEEN AMERICAN.. THE OTHER DAY U SAID U WALKED ALONG THE BOARDWALK TO THE LIBRARY IN DUBLIN ... OH YOU SILL FOOL...I WOULD LOVE A REFERENDUM IN IRELAND TO EXPRESS HOW WE IRISH WANT AMERICANS TO KEEP OUT OF IRISH AFFAIRS AS THEY HAVE CAUSE ENOUGH WARS AND MAYHEM ALL AROUND THE WORLD... YOU SEEM LIKE A VERY BITTER OLD MAN AS FOR YOUR COMMENTS AMERICANS CAN COME BACK TO IRELAND TO CLAIM WHATS THEIRS I SIT HERE AND SAY ONLY AN AROGANT AMERICAN FULL OF RUBBISH COULD COME OUT WITH A COMMENT LIKE THAT .. HAAHA !! GO HOME

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IrelandNorth | Apr 27, 2012, 06:43 AM EDT

STEVENSTAR! I'm a 55 year old ex-Catholic Irishman from south Dublin. From Leinster (Eastern Ireland). A green unionist (i.e. a United Irelander). Why do you think everyone who expresses a progressive opinion on this website is from the United States of America? You constantly SHOUT about being born and living in Ireland without telling American posters you're from Ulster/Northern Ireland, and consider yourself British here? Are you afraid 40 million Irish-Americans will arrive back in Ireland with their luggage to reclaim their rightful inheritance? If so, that's what I call a siege mentality on steroids. Allan07! As a 48 year old Ulster/Northern Ireland Presbyterian British unionist and loyalist, (with a first in economics living and working on the south coast of England), you considered me a foreigner? That I might as well be Chinese! Yet you express the desire to be Chinese rather than live in a United Ireland. Does that mean we can be neighbours at last, even if only in Szechuawan province (which I believe is in 'southern' China)? PS Catholicism and Protestantism aren't generically Christian. CiaraDexy! A word of advice from someone old enough to be your father. Glossy magazines at your local hairdressers aren't good source material for authoritative commentary on historical and political complexities. As a 32 year old casualty of a 26 county revisionist education (and designer propagandistic partitionist press and morose media), beware of programmed subjecetivity. As a maternity hospital worker, be careful you don't abort the new republic by ill-considered statements. I fear you're a loose canon on the decks of the Lóng Éireannach (phon/pron Lung Air-in-ach)(LE) Hibernia.

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DanOLoingsigh | Apr 27, 2012, 03:35 AM EDT

Seano - You're pretty good at the ould fairytales yourself...rewriting the GFA for one!!!

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seanomelb | Apr 26, 2012, 09:01 PM EDT

Stevenstar juggling figures like a character from" Alice in wonderland" Allan07 I'll let you in on a secret everybody but you knows, that protestantism did not exist in the 5th.century.BTW Dev lived in Ireland from childhood until his death.I find it amusing that the anti Irish on IC proactively try to rewrite history with fairytales

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Bythebay | Apr 26, 2012, 08:45 PM EDT

ancavker, DeValera spent an enormous amount of time in the USA, and was hugely influenced by the bigoted and slanted Catholic Church in the US. No detail or records were ever found for the information he claimed about his father either.

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Bythebay | Apr 26, 2012, 08:40 PM EDT

esatdigiwank, your concern is too late. It's already happening and the new Financial Treaty for the EU countries will cement it. That's what the Europen Union is about. Ireland diluted it's own identity with the Celtic Tiger. Ireland will move forward with Europe and ratify the new treaty. Jobs are at stake. This is 2012, not 1912.

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allan07 | Apr 26, 2012, 03:23 PM EDT

@ancavker De Valera was an Americian born in New York. He was of Spanish descent and hence his spanish name. He never returned to Ireland as he was not born in Ireland. You are good at spinning the truth so thin that everyone can see through it. You dont let the truth get in the way of a good story. Check it out for yourself. Wikipedia. Go on have a read. His mother was Irish and she left Ireland years before his birth. Even St. Patrick was a Frenchman and a protestant. Talk facts and not myth.

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STEVENSTAR | Apr 26, 2012, 09:00 AM EDT

STATISTICS ARE INCORRECT AND ALSO SINN FEINS VOTE 'FELL' TO 17% IN THE DUBLIN AREA .... THEY DO HAVE A MAJORITY OF 21% OF PEOPLE WHO VOTED THATS NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH 21% OF THE COUNTRY ... NO WORRIES .. I UNDERSTAND THIS IS AN AMERICAN PUBLICATION IN A DIFFERENT COUNTRY IN A DIFFERNT TIME ZOME TO US IN IRELAND SO YOUR MISCALCULATIONS AND MISUNDERSTANDINGS AS TO WHAT GOES ON IN IRELAND WHICH IS 1000S AND 1000S OF MILES AWAY FROM U IS UNDERSTANDABLE..... BEST ALL AMERICANS KEEP OUT OF IRISH AFFAIRS AND STOP GIVING MEDIA COVERAGE TO GERRY ADAMS AND THE IRA ..

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esatdigiwank | Apr 26, 2012, 02:30 AM EDT

BytheBy you seem to cherish the Republic becoming a Multicultural, politically-correct hell where the sense of Irish identity is diluting to the point of nothing. I never wanted an overwhelmingly unbalanced multi-cultural society. The leaders of France, Germany have admitted that multiculturalism has been a failure; to what means? What is it they've realised that you have not? By applauding multiculturalism as you seem to do you condone More Religion not Less?? It is the Trojan horse backdoor for I s l a m.

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