The latest Ireland Thinks poll for the Sunday Independent puts Mary Lou McDonald’s party on 27pc, a two point drop since February, an eight point drop compared to last September and its lowest level of support in the series since April 2021.
The findings are likely to prompt further alarm in Sinn Féin which was polling at 35pc as recently as six months ago. However, it remains the most popular party in the country.
Fine Gael is second on 20pc (up one), Fianna Fáil is on 18pc (up one) and in a further boost to the Coalition, the Green Party is also up one to 4pc.
But the Greens trail the Social Democrats who are up two points to 7pc, while Labour is unchanged on 4pc. Solidarity-People Before Profit is on 2pc, down one, with Aontú on 2pc down one, and Independents and others down one to 17pc.
Whilst the recent drop in support for Sinn Féin was widely attributed to voters’ concern about its immigration policy, this month’s polls finds that public concern about that issue has dropped ten points in the last month.
The two most important priorities for the public are now housing and the cost of living, followed by healthcare. While concern for immigration has fallen to fourth place, the level of concern about the Israel-Hamas war is up six points, just behind concerns about rise of the far-right.
Support for Sinn Féin in government has also taken a knock with 43pc (up five) of the public backing the re-election of the current government in a forced choice, ahead of a Sinn Féin-led government excluding Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil on 39pc (down four).
In another forced choice the re-election of the Coalition is backed by 40pc of voters (down three) putting it ahead of a Sinn Féin-Fianna Fáil coalition on 39pc (down two).
This weekend’s Ireland Thinks poll finds exactly half of those asked had no confidence in Catherine Martin’s handling of the RTÉ controversies, with 28pc saying they have confidence and 22pc not sure.
However more people had no confidence in former chair Siún Ní Raghallaigh (57pc), while 16pc had confidence and 27pc were not sure.
Asked if Ní Raghallaigh was fairly treated by Martin, who failed to express confidence in her on a live television interview just over a week ago, the findings show that 32pc believe the former chair was fairly treated, 34pc said she was not and 33pc said they do not know.
When asked if they had confidence in Kevin Bakhurst as director general of RTÉ, 34pc of those who responded said they did, 39 per cent said No, and 27 per cent said they were not sure.
Despite the saga at Montrose dragging on for some eight months, nearly 60pc of the public remain interested in the ongoing issues at RTÉ with 25pc saying they are extremely interested and 34pc moderately interested.
The poll was carried out on Friday and Saturday, March 1 and 2 among a sample size of 1,083 people with a margin of error of +/- 3pc.
