A new opinion poll contains good news for the Government, showing both Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats gaining support.
However, despite a successful Ard Fheis, support for the main opposition party, Fine Gael, and leader Michael Noonan, is still declining, according to the MRBI poll in tomorrow's Irish Times.
One thousand electors were questioned on Monday and Tuesday at 100 sampling centres in every constituency for the MRBI poll in tomorrow's newspaper.
Since the last poll five weeks ago, the referendum campaign has got into full swing, and Fine Gael held a successful Ard Fheis featuring a strong performance by Michael Noonan. But this has done nothing for their poll ratings.
After excluding the 17% who said they did not know how they would vote, and adjusting for the usual overestimate of Fianna Fáil support, the poll found Fianna Fáil had the support of 42% (up 1%). Fine Gael support was 20% (down 1%).
Labour had 12% support (up 1%), the PDs had 4% (also up one), the Greens had 5% (unchanged), Sinn Féin scored 8% (also unchanged), and others had the support of 9% (down 2%).
The Taoiseach again tops the satisfaction ratings, with 67% satisfied with his performance (down 1%). Twenty nine per cent were satisfied with the performance of Michael Noonan (down 2%).
Ruairí Quinn scored 41% (unchanged), while Mary Harney got 56% (up 2%), 36% were satisfied with Trevor Sargent (up 1%). Forty-eight per cent said they were satisfied with Gerry Adams (down 8%).
Between them, Fianna Fáil and the PDs have the makings of a majority, with the support of 48% of voters. That is 11% ahead of the alternative Rainbow of Fine Gael, Labour, and the Greens.
