Adrian Kavanagh, 4th December 2014 

There are obvious winners – the Independents and Others grouping – and losers – the government parties – in today’s Irish Times-Ipsos MRBI poll. Recent polls, including the latest Sunday Business Post-Red C poll (22nd November 2014), were suggesting that the political effects of the recent events surrounding Irish Water were politically benefiting the Independents and Others grouping and Sinn Fein at the expense of the government parties but these trends are particularly evident in today’s poll, which sees support levels for the government parties standing at thirty percentage points lower than the level of support won by these parties in the 2011 General Election. The Independents and Others grouping makes a highly significant nine percentage points gain in this poll relative to the previous such Ipsos-MRBI poll to leave it on a much higher support level than that enjoyed by any of the larger political parties but also leave this grouping’s support levels as standing well above the combined support level for the government parties in this poll. The latest Irish Times-Ipsos MRBI poll estimates party support levels as follows (and relative to the previous Irish Times-Ipsos MRBI poll): Independents and Others 32% (up 9%), Sinn Fein 22% (down 2%),  Fianna Fail 21% (up 1%), Fine Gael 19% (down 5%), Labour Party 6% (down 3%). My constituency-level analysis of these poll figures estimates that party seat levels, should such national support trends be replicated in an actual general election, would be as follows: Fianna Fail 36, Fine Gael 32, Sinn Fein 36, Labour Party 0, Independents and Others 52. 

The big story in this poll is the exceptionally strong showing by the Independents and Others grouping. But seat levels for the Independents grouping can be notably harder to glean than would be the case for the larger political parties. First of all, opinion polls usually measure support for Independents and Others and not just Independent candidates. A number of smaller parties and alliances, including the Socialist Party and People Before Profit Alliance – as well as the Green Party on some occasions – are included within this very large and diverse grouping. The nature of this grouping means that support levels do not usually translate as neatly into seat gains as would be the case with parties such as Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Vote transfer levels across this grouping will generally not prove to be as strong as the extent of intra-party vote transfer levels enjoyed by the larger political parties, who in turn often enjoy a “seat bonus” at most general election contests. Votes for Independents located in the centre-right of the political spectrum (such as the Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael “gene pool” independents or people such as Shane Ross and Stephen Donnelly) are probably more likely to be transferred to the two main parties (or else be shaped by local candidate factors) than they are to go to left-leaning independent candidates. In a similar vein, these centre-right independents are probably less likely to draw large numbers of vote transfers from left-wing independents than candidates from Sinn Féin, the People Before Profit Alliance or Socialist Party are.

Furthermore, votes won by the Independents and Others grouping tend to be shared across a larger number of candidates than would be the case with the larger political parties, with a significant number of these candidates also having little or no chance of winning seats. For instance, candidates from the Independents and Others grouping won 20.4% of the vote in Laois-Offaly at the 2011 General Election, but, with this constituency being contested by eleven candidates from this grouping, none of these went on to win a seat here. (By contrast, Sinn Féin’s Brian Stanley won a seat there with 10.8% of the vote.) At this year’s local elections, 583 independent candidates and 139 candidates from the “Others” (smaller parties/alliances) grouping combined to win 26.6% of the national vote, emerging as the largest political grouping in terms of vote share. But, with this vote being divided up between a much larger number of candidates than Fine Gael (468) and especially Fianna Fáil (415), this grouping accounted for a smaller number of Council seats (225) than the number won by Fianna Fáil (267) or Fine Gael (235).

The main issue when it comes to sustaining current support levels for the Independents and Others grouping into the next general election relates to how the electorate tends to become increasingly focused on the composition of the next government in the months leading up to this contest. The precedent in recent electoral contests shows that significant changes in public opinion can occur in the months leading up to a general election. In the past, such changing support trends have often seen this grouping becoming increasingly marginalised, or “squeezed out”, the closer one gets to polling day, especially when election contests are perceived to be close, as was the case with the 2007 General Election. However, the Independents and Others grouping includes a number of alliances or groupings that could possibly command five, or more, seats in Dáil Eireann after the next election. Such alliances/groupings could be in a position to play a significant role within the next government. Falling into this category on the left of the political spectrum would be the Socialist Party/Anti Austerity Alliance and People Before Profit Alliance, as well as the Independents Network grouping. Scope for potential alliances on the opposite side of the political spectrum is offered by the Reform Alliance grouping. Another key player here, of course, will be the proposed new alliance of independents, involving Shane Ross, Jihn Halligan, Stephen Donnelly, Finian McGrath and other. If these groupings can portray themselves as groupings that could be potentially strong actors within the next government, then they are less like to get “squeezed out” in the run up to the next election when decisions as regards government formation weigh heavier on political choice.

Even though they are the only one of the larger parties to gain support in this poll, Fianna Fail support levels remain just three percentage points above the level won by that party at the 2011 General Election. But, as most electoral contests held since 2011 have shown, Fianna Fail have tended to perform better in actual elections than they have been performing in opinion polls. While the party still remains to win a Dail by-election (and indeed have not won one since 1996) during this period, they are better placed to win the Carlow-Kilkenny by-election in Spring 2015 than was the case with the six previous contests. Furthermore, the Fianna Fail performance in the 2014 Local Elections exceeded expectations based on the opinion polls leading up to that contest (and indeed the exit poll taken on the day of that contest). Could it be the case that voters are more inclined to support Fianna Fail candidates than they are to support Fianna Fail, the party? In any case, despite the party’s disappointing poll standings, this analysis suggests that Fianna Fail would be well placed to make a number of gains at the next election (even with the overall reduction of Dail seat numbers from 166 to 158), with the increasingly fractured political landscape and the declining fortunes of Fine Gael and Labour creating an opportunity space for Fianna Fail seat gains (or, rather, regains).

Constituency support estimates for different parties and groupings form the basis of the general approach taken with this analysis, which seeks to ask the following question in relation to different opinion poll results – what do these poll figures mean in terms of the likely number of Dail seats won by the different parties and groupings? Although the Irish electoral system is classified as a proportional electoral system, the proportion of seats won by parties will not measure up exactly to their actual share of the first preference votes, mainly because geography has an impact here – these first preference votes need to be filtered through the system of Irish electoral constituencies (and the different numbers of seats that are apportioned to these). In order to address this question, I estimate what the party first preference votes would be in the different constituencies, assuming similar (proportional) changes in party vote shares in all constituencies to those that are being suggested by a particular opinion poll. This of course is a very rough model and it  cannot take appropriate account of the fact that changing support levels between elections tend to vary geographically, while it also fails to take account of the local particularities of the different regions in cases where no regional figures are produced in association with different national opinion polls meaning that there is no scope to carry out separate regional analyses based on these poll figures. Thus constituency support estimates for different parties/groupings will be over-estimated in some constituencies and under-estimated in others, but the expectation would be that the overall national seat figures figures estimated will be relatively close to the true level, given that over-estimates in certain constituencies will be offset by under-estimates in others. Based on these estimated constituency support figures, I proceed to estimate the destination of seats in the different constituencies. The constituency level analysis involves the assigning seat levels to different parties and political groupings on the basis of constituency support estimates and simply using a d’Hondt method to determine which party wins the seats, while also taking account of the factors of vote transfers and vote splitting/management (based on vote transfer/management patterns observed in the February 2011 election). Due to unusually high/low support levels for some parties or political groupings in certain constituencies in the previous election, the model may throw up occasional constituency predictions that are unlikely to pan out in a “real election”, but of course the estimates here cannot be seen as highly accurate estimates of support levels at the constituency level as in a “real election” party support changes will vary significantly across constituency given uneven geographical shifts in support levels. But the point to remember here is that the ultimate aim of this model is to get an overall, national-level, estimate of seat numbers and these are based, as noted earlier, on the proviso that an over-prediction in one constituency may be offset by an under-prediction in another constituency. Based on such an analysis and using the new constituency units (as defined in the 2012 Constituency Commission report), these analyses estimates what party seat levels would be, should such national support trends be replicated in an actual general election. For a variety of reasons (including the impact of high levels of undecided voters in a specific poll), the actual result of an election may vary from the figures suggested by an opinion poll, even if the poll is carried out relatively close to election day, or on election day itself as in the case of exit polls, but the likelihood of such variation is not something that can be factored into this model. Vote transfer patterns of course cannot be accounted for in the constituency support estimate figures, but I do try to control for these somewhat in my set of amended seat allocations.

I have made some further corrections to the base support figures for the different parties for this analysis to take better account of the impacts on support of the 2012 Constituency Commission report boundary changes with especial reference to the Dublin constituencies. For instance, these figures better reflect the weaker positions of Fine Gael and Fianna Fail in Dublin Central after the moving out of the Ashtown area to Dublin West and the Botanic/Drumcondra area to Dublin North West, but also their stronger positions in Dublin West and Dublin North West. Fine Gael are assigned an extra seat in Dun Laoghaire on the basis that the Ceann Comhairle, Sean Barrett, will be automatically returned at the next general election (unless he decides to retire from politics before this) and this constituency will effectively be rendered a three-seat contest at the next general election. (Changes in constituency boundaries as outlined in the 2012 Constituency Commisison report have been factored in to this analysis. An overview of the political impacts of these changes on the adriankavanaghelections.org elections commentary site suggests that Fianna Fail would seem to be the party most likely to be positively effected by the redrawing of the constituency boundaries, with the Labour Party being the party likely to be the most adversely effected by these changes.)

Note that the approach used in this analysis is different to those of the constituency level analyses of the 2011-13 in that it now takes account of defections/changing party affiliations for people who were candidates in the 2011 General Election, as will be outlined in greater detail later in this post (and as such the seat estimates for this, and later posts, cannot be directly compared with those for the 2011, 2012 and Early 2013 analyses of post-General Election 2011 opinion polls). In cases where a General Election 2011 candidate has definitely left a party (or the independents ranks) to join another party or to become an independent, a portion of their 2011 will be taken away from the constituency base figures for their former party/grouping and added to those of their new party/grouping. The approach taken in the run up to the 2011 General Election was to assign all of the votes won by that candidate to their new grouping, but the actual 2011 results showed that this was an over-estimation of the likely impact  of such changes. For instance the Labour Party constituency estimates for Mayo and Roscommon-South Leitrim following the moves of Jerry Cowley and John Kelly into the Labour Party ranks were well in excess of the actual votes won by that party in those constituencies. In this approach, half of the votes won by a candidate in the 2011 contest will be assigned to their new party/grouping while the rest of the votes will remain assigned to their old party/grouping. Where a constituency boundary change is involved, meaning that part(s) of a candidate’s old constituency is now moved into another constituency/other constituencies, the base figures for all these constituencies will be recalculated to take account of this. For instance, the impact of Peter Mathews leaving the Fine Gael ranks means that the Fine Gael and Non Party base figures are altered in Dublin Rathdown, but also in the Dublin South-West and Dun Laoghaire constituencies. Note that this approach will not take account of candidates who have lost the party whip but who may ultimately return to the party at a later date or who have been temporarily suspended from their party, as in the cases of Brain Walsh (Fine Gael, Galway West) or Peadar Toibin (Sinn Fein, Meath West). This approach also takes account of those candidates who did not win Dail seats at the 2011 contest, including people like Fidelma Healy-Eames (Galway West), Eddie Fitzpatrick (Offaly), Jenny McHugh (Meath West) and Tom Fortune (Wicklow). In the wake of Patrick Nulty’s resignation, the correction made in Dublin West to the Labour and Independent/Non Party bases figures has now been reversed there.

The constituency support estimates based on the Irish Times-Ipsos MRBI poll (4th December 2014), when using the new constituency units (as to be used at the next general election), are as follows:

Based on these constituency estimates and using a d’Hondt method to determine which party wins the seats in a constituency, the party seat levels are estimated as follows:

These estimates also need to take account of the candidate and competition trends unique to the different constituency. Amending the model to account for seats that may be won or lost on the basis of estimates here being based on support levels derived due to a large/small number of candidates contesting the election in 2011 (as in the large number of independent candidates competing in constituencies such as Wicklow or Laois-Offaly in 2011) or one candidate polling especially well in that election (e.g. the Shane Ross vote in Dublin South/Mick Wallace vote in Wexford) in a manner that would not amount to an extra seat for another member of the same party/grouping. Vote transfer patterns and vote management issues (e.g. discrepancies between votes won by party front runners and their running mates which would see potential seat wins fall out of a party’s hands) also need to be accounted for. Taking these concerns into account, the amended seat allocations across the constituencies would look more like this:

Based on these seat estimates, a Fine Gael-Labour (combined seat level of 34 seats) would be well short of the number of seats required to form a government (79 seats) while a potential Sinn Fein-Fianna Fail alliance (combined seat level of 72 seats) would come rather closer to this 79 seat target. A Fine Gael and Sinn Fein pairing would also fail to amass a sufficient number of seats (combined seat level of 70 seats) to command a majority in Dail Eireann, but such an alliance looks to be unlikely in the present political climate in any course. Based on these numbers, a potential Fine Gael-Fianna Fail alliance would also be incapable of mustering enough seats to form a two-party coalition without needing the support of another nine, or more, Dail deputies (with a combined seat level of 70 seats). Two-party coalitions are proving to be very difficult prospects in this analysis due to the exceptional strength of the Independents and Others grouping in this polls – and indeed other recent polls – meaning that the support of a number of members of this grouping would be required to support any potential two party alliance, based on these figures. On these figures a government without any of the three traditional larger parties (Fine Gael, Fianna Fail, Labour) would be mathematically possible, but this would require a coherent grouping of at least 43 Dail Deputies to be formed from within the Independents and Others grouping in order to form a coalition government with Sinn Fein.

On these seat estimates, the next Dail could look something like this:

Carlow-Kilkenny: John McGuinness FF, Jennifer Murnane O’Connor FF, John Paul Phelan FG, Pat Deering FG, Kathleen Funchion SF

Cavan-Monaghan: Brendan Smith FF, Heather Humphries FG, Caoimghin O Caolan SF, Kathryn Reilly SF

Clare: Timmy Dooley FF, Pat Breen FG, James Breen IND, Christy Curtin IND

Cork East: Kevin O’Keeffe FF, David Stanton FG, Sandra McLellan SF, June Murphy SF

Cork North Central: Billy Kelleher FF, Jonathan O’Brien SF, Thomas Gould SF, Mick Barry SP

Cork North West: Michael Moynihan FF, Michael Creed FG, Des O’Grady SF

Cork South Central: Micheal Martin FF, Michael McGrath FF, Simon Coveney FG, Chris O’Leary SF

Cork South West: Joe Carroll FF, Jim Daly FG, Rachel McCarthy SF

Donegal: Charlie McConalogue FF, Pearse Doherty SF, Padraig MacLochlainn SF, Gary Doherty SF, Thomas Pringle IND

Dublin Central: Mary Lou McDonald SF, Maureen O’Sullivan IND, Cieran Perry IND

Dublin Mid West: Frances Fitzgerald FG, Eoin O’Broin SF, Danny O’Brien SF, Gino Kenny PBPA

Dublin Fingal: Darragh O’Brien FF, James Reilly FG, Joe O’Brien GP, Clare Daly UL, David O’Connor IND

Dublin Bay North: Averil Power FF, Richard Bruton FG, Larry O’Toole SF, Finian McGrath IND, Tommy Broughan IND

Dublin North West: Dessie Ellis SF, Emma Murphy SF, Roisin Shortall IND

Dublin Rathdown: Olivia Mitchell FG, Shane Ross IND, Deirdre Donnelly IND

Dublin South Central:  Aengus O Snodaigh SF, Criona Ni Dhalaigh SF, Joan Collins UL, Brid Smith PBPA

Dublin Bay South: Chris Andrews SF, Lucinda Creighton IND, Mannix Flynn IND, Claire Byrne GP

Dublin South West: John Lahart FF, Cait Keane FG, Sean Crowe SF, Cathal King SF, Paul Murphy SP

Dublin West: David McGuinness FF, Leo Varadkar FG, Ruth Coppinger SP, Sandra Kavanagh SP

Dun Laoghaire: Mary Hanafin FF, Sean Barrett FG, Mary Mitchell O’Connor FG, Richard Boyd Barrett PBP

Galway East: Michael Kitt FF, Paul Connaughton FG, Sean Canney IND

Galway West: Eamonn O Cuiv FF, Brian Walsh FG, Noel Grealish IND, Catherine Connolly IND, Terry O’Flaherty IND

Kerry: Norma Foley FF, Jimmy Deenihan FG, Martin Ferris SF, Michael Healy Rae IND, Tom Fleming IND

Kildare North: James Lawless FF, Bernard Durkin FG, Catherine Murphy IND, Padraig McEvoy IND

Kildare South: Sean O Fearghaill FF, Martin Heydon FG, Joanne Pender IND

Laois: Sean Fleming FF, Charlie Flanagan FG, Brian Stanley SF

Offaly: Barry Cowen FF, John Foley IND, John Leahy IND

Limerick City: Willie O’Dea FF, Shane Clifford FF, Michael Noonan FG, Maurice Quinlivan SF

Limerick: Niall Collins FF, Dan Neville FG, Emmet O’Brien IND

Longford-Westmeath: Robert Troy FF, James Bannon FG, Paul Hogan SF, Kevin “Boxer” Moran IND

Louth: Declan Breathnach FF, Fergus O’Dowd FG, Gerry Adams SF, Imelda Munster SF, Maeve Yore IND

Mayo: Dara Calleary FF, Enda Kenny FG, Michael Ring FG, Therese Ruane SF

Meath East: Thomas Byrne FF, Regina Doherty FG, Darren O’Rourke SF

Meath West: Vera Kelly FF, Damien English FG, Peadar Toibin SF

Roscommon-Galway: Denis Naughten IND, Michael Fitzmaurice IND, Valerie Byrne IND

Sligo-Leitrim: Marc McSharry FF, John Perry FG, Michael Colreavy SF, Margaret Gormley IND

Tipperary: Michael Smith FF, Michael Lowry IND, Mattie McGrath IND, Seamus Healy WUAG, Joe Hannigan IND

Waterford: Michael J. O’Ryan FF, John Deasy FG, David Cullinane SF, John Halligan IND

Wexford: John Browne FF, Liam Twomey FG, Anthony Kelly SF, Mick Wallace IND, Ger Carthy IND

Wicklow: Andrew Doyle FG, John Brady SF, Stephen Donnelly IND, Billy Timmins IND, Joe Behan IND

NB: This is by no means a scientific list! The inclusion, or non-inclusion, of people on this list by no means indicates that I think they would be the ones to take a party seat/nomination at the next general election – I am merely including some of the “likelier suspects” based on recent elections.  Sitting TDs (and the strongest of these, in 2011 General Election first preference vote terms) tend to be favoured when compiling this list. Where a TD has formally announced that they will not be contesting the next general election, they will not be included on this list, e.g. Joe Higgins (SP, Dublin West). In cases where there is no sitting TD, City/County Councillors and/or Senators (or recent local/general election candidates) will tend to be included here (and I will “try” to alternate between potential candidates up to a point in time when parties have actually finalised their candidate selections for specific constituencies). In short, where’s there’s no sitting TD or obvious candidate (i.e. someone who narrowly missed out on a seat in 2011 and followed this up with a strong performance in the May 2014 elections or election to the Seanad) I assign the “party” or “independent” seat by picking from the ranks of “likely suspects” based on most recent local election/general election results and “try” to alternate between these in different posts…

Given the improved support levels for Sinn Fein relative to the 2011 General Election, the seat estimates based on these constituency-level analyses suggest a significant improvement in that party’s seat levels relative to those won by the party at the 2011 contest (especially given that the fact that the eight fewer seats in the next Dail has been factored into this analysis), effectively pointing to significant gains on the part of the main Dail opposition parties since 2011. While Fianna Fail support levels in this poll are seen to be only marginally higher than their 2011 support levels, the favourable changes made (in their perspective) in the 2012 Constituency Commssion report, in addition to the impact of the loss of support for the government parties, means that they would be winning ten, or more, extra seats if these support levels were to be replicated at the next general election. The same very applies very much to the Independents and Others grouping, but it is worth noting that, as opposed to the parties, the Independents and Others grouping is a very broad church and includes a range of parties, groups and individuals with very different ideological perspectives, including the Socialist Party and the People Before Profit alliance as well as left-leaning independents, but also politicians located in the centre-right of the political spectrum, including a significant number of Fianna Fail/Fine Gael-gene pool independents and people such as Shane Ross and Stephen Donnelly. Looking at the constituencies where this grouping is predicted to win seats in this model, it can be seen that left-leaning parties and independents would take at least 25 of the 52 seats being assigned to this grouping with this Irish Times-Ipsos MRBI poll.

The seat level estimates in all of these analyses for the Labour Party are stark (highlighting the fact that the PR-STV system is proportional, but only to a limited extent), but most notably in the Sunday Business Post-Red C poll. Previous analyses have, moreover, suggested that, especially given the increased competition on the Left from Sinn Fein, other smaller left of centre parties and left-leaning independents, that it will be a struggle for Labour to win seats in most, if not all, constituencies if the party’s national support levels fall below the ten percent level, as has been shown in similar analyses of recent Sunday Independent-Millward Brown and Irish Times-Ipsos MRBI polls. Based on the analysis of this latest Sunday Independent-Millward Brown poll and other polls covered in this post, Labour would be in serious trouble if their national support levels fall below ten percent as the party is also facing a “perfect storm” from electoral geography and changed competition levels. These factors include the reduction in Dail seat numbers (from 166 to 158) and other changes made to general election boundaries by the 2012 Constituency Commission (which militated against Labour while seeming to advantage other parties, but notably Fianna Fail) as well as the increased competition the party now faces on the Left from Sinn Fein, other smaller left-wing parties and left-of-centre independents, as well as from Fianna Fail. When Labour support levels fell to similarly low levels in the late 1990s and early-to-mid 2000s, the party was in a position to be helped (as in the 1997, 2002 and 2007 General Elections) by transfers from lower placed candidates from the smaller left-wing parties. But on these constituency-estimate figures outlined in these analyses Labour Party candidates would find themselves polling below candidates from Sinn Fein, the Socialist Party, the Workers and Unemployed Action Group or the People Before Profit Alliance, or left-leaning independents, in a number of constituencies. Instead of being in a position to possibly benefit from vote transfers (which themselves would be likely to dry up in any case), the Labour candidates would now in a number of cases be eliminated before the final count and would be providing the transfers to see candidates from other left-of-centre political groupings over the line. (If we look at the 1987 case study – we see Labour won 6.5% of the vote in the 1987 General Election and won 12 seats, but it is also worth noting that they did not contest nine constituencies in that election, whereas their 7% national vote is being distributed across all forty constituencies in this analysis, as with the most recent general elections in which Labour has contested all constituencies. In two of the twelve constituencies in 1987 where Labour won seats – Dublin South-Central, Dublin South-West, Galway West and Wexford – vote transfers were crucial in ensuring Labour won these these seats – i.e. Labour candidates were outside the seat positions on the first count but overtook candidates with higher first preference votes as counts progressed due to transfers from other candidates.

Voting statistics for constituencies in which Labour won seats at the 1987 General Election. The table above shows that there was no constituency in 1987 in which a Labour candidate exceeded the quota and indeed successful Labour candidates, Ruairi Quinn and Michael D. Higgins won seats in their constituencies despite winning less than half of the quota in their first preference votes. In addition, Dick Spring came within a handful of votes of losing his seat in Kerry North.)