Online poll shows dip in Dooley support

A NEW online poll has indicated that if a general election was to be held now, the 2007 poll topper Timmy Dooley would struggle to hold his seat, while Fine Gael would be likely to usurp the Soldiers of Destiny as the most popular party in Clare.

The straw poll was carried out on The Clare Herald website (www.clareherald.com) but the results should be taken in context.
A total of 297 people voted, a number significantly lower than the sample generally used by pollsters.
Those behind the website ensured only one vote could be registered per computer, while they have said that the vast majority of votes were from within Clare’s borders.
The list of candidates included almost all who stood in 2007, along with independent Clare County Councillor Patricia McCarthy, who has contested previous general elections.
With no election on the horizon as yet, it remains to be seen how many of those listed would actually put their names forward.
The results were encouraging from a Fine Gael perspective, with sitting TDs Pat Breen and Joe Carey securing 17.5% and 15.2% of votes cast, respectively.
Madeleine Taylor-Quinn and Mayor of Clare, Tony Mulcahy both stood in the last general election for the party and in this poll they secured 2.4% and 4.7% of the vote respectively.
The Greens may have picked a terrible time to enter Government but the poll shows Brian Meaney at 5.4%.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of the poll is the low level of support for Timmy Dooley. In 2007, Deputy Dooley topped the general election count.
However, in The Clare Herald survey, his support dipped and he stands in 10th place with just 4.7%.
His Fianna Fáil colleague Tony Killeen was the third most popular in The Clare Herald poll on 11.4%, behind Breen and Carey.
Just under 9% expressed a preference for Sinn Féin candidate Anna Prior, while Pascal Fitzgerald stands at 6.7%.
Independent James Breen came out with 6.1%. Patricia McCarthy has had a long innings as a member of Clare County Council and 3% of respondents in the poll indicated they would give her their number one.
Some 14.1% gave their backing to AN Other, indicating that there may still be a large rump of undecided voters around Clare and this could open the door for an already established individual, such as North Clare Councillor Martin Conway, independent Michael McNamara, who campaigned in the last European election, or someone else well known from another area of local public life.
Speaking to The Clare Champion on Wednesday, Councillor Conway said that he might be interested in making a bid for the Dáil.
“It’s something that I would certainly give serious consideration to. But I believe the next election is still some way off and it would be premature to be making a decision.”

No confidence in survey results
NEITHER the big winners nor the big losers in the Clare Herald poll were inclined to take the results seriously.
The figures indicated a very significant decline in support for Timmy Dooley since he won his seat but he said the findings aren’t reliable. “I hadn’t seen it and I didn’t know it was going on. With these type of polls when people are aware of them they can get their friends to vote and they can be distorted. I wouldn’t pay any attention to it.”
However, he acknowledged that Fianna Fáíl will inevitably be fighting an uphill battle when next they go to the country.
“There’s little doubt it will be a difficult election. The Government have had to take very tough decisions but we’re elected to do a job. We’re not there to get re-elected, we have got to do difficult work.”
While Pat Breen was the most popular candidate in the poll, like Deputy Dooley, he wasn’t taking the findings very seriously.
“I would be very wary of polls on the net to be honest about it. We saw some before the last election and they were completely wrong. It’s open to people to distort them. I would be very wary about any polls that don’t come from a representative sample.”
But he did acknowledge that Fine Gael have reason to be confident.
“People see us as the alternative to the Government and I can see that from the people that I meet on a daily basis.”
He said that the likely state of the parties in Clare wouldn’t become clear until all candidates were known.