Polls only tell us what we already know

I’m not a fan of polls. However, in view of the fact that we, for the next 12 months or more (or less, depending on Leo and his general election call!) will be inundated with polls telling us things we don’t need to know about things that don’t really mean much in terms of how we organise our lives then it might be no harm to just delve a little into the topic.

I’m the age I am, and I invite you dear reader to consider this as you may be of similar mind, disposition and longevity, but, not once from teenage years to pension have I been approached in the street or in the house, or on the phone to give my considered opinion on the state of the nation, or indeed matters of football, sport, arts, entertainment and matters of more import than the aforementioned state of the nation. Now, I don’t think my opinion is more worthy of capturing than that of the next person, but I find it curious that, on the law of averages, it did not happen once in a lifetime that I was approached by someone conducting a poll.

These people, armed with their battery of impossible questions, issue forth on the lookout for ordinary citizens to help them with their work. We are told, with considerable gravitas, that the questions are the result of a scientific approach to establish a formulae that produces an accurate result. And I have no doubt that is the case. But, there is no accounting for human nature and there will always be one or two or four who take pleasure in being different and responding with improbable and confusing responses. And so we have the caveat that goes with each poll - there is a margin of error of plus or minus three or four per cent. That gets the pollsters off the hook! But it does not tell us much.

The recent (February) Irish Times poll on the political temperature in the country produced headline-grabbing stuff. Sinn Féin support down (four per cent- within the margin of error!). Wow! Mary Lou down four per cent - again within the margin of error. Wow again! The pollsters certainly like to hedge their bets. Leo and Fine Gael unchanged. Micheál Martin doing fine but Fianna Fail stuck in a rut. Independents and smaller parties making gains.

The thing about those headlines is that any voter who takes even a cursory interest in politics could come to the same conclusion without spending a fortune on a survey.

That the gloss would go off Mary Lou is not a surprise. She did not cover herself in glory with her rush to judgement in the aftermath of the so-called Dublin riots. I suggest “so-called” because in my view a good riot would not be contained within a few hours, unless, of course, the situation was managed very well by the Gardaí. What we had in Dublin was a disgraceful bit of anti-Garda thuggery prompted by a few provocateurs intent on property destruction and, of course, a few opportunistic potential entrepreneurs who ransacked and raided a number of shops. They were not interested in rioting, they were interested in lining their pockets.

It was Mary Lou’s constituency that was the seat of the incident that led to the Dublin bruhaha so of course she felt compelled to jump to the barricades and there was an obvious target on whom to vent. The Minister for Justice was under the hammer arising from anti-social and criminal behaviour in the inner city and her laidback approach to taking action must have been infuriating for Mary Lou so she went for the jugular and demanded her head on a plate. That might have resonated with her supporters but it was extreme and it did not take long for the Minister’s colleagues to come to her defence.

And Mary Lou did not stop at the Minister, she also wanted the head of the Garda Commissioner thus leaving the force without a head and that at a time when it is not possible to find a Deputy Head of the Gardaí or indeed fill the roles of a number of other high-ranking positions.

No. It was not one of Mary Lou’s finest moments and the Sinn Féin leader is now facing into a very tricky time for her leadership. I’m not suggesting that she is under any threat but the return of the Northern Ireland Executive and the appointment of Michelle O’Neill as First (equal, according to her second Minister Ms Emma Little-Pengelly) Minister presents problems. As you would expect, Ms O’Neill in her first comments as First Minister declared she would be a Minister for all the people and especially those people of a Unionist/Loyalist persuasion.

And that’s a problem for Mary Lou. Political anoraks, such as myself, have noted that whenever Sinn Féin are floundering they pluck up the United Ireland card and the Border poll and we are assured that we will have a United Ireland (whatever that means!) within ten years. That is the Sinn Féin mantra but try telling Ms Little-Pengelly that her Unionist and British identity is best served in that fairytale happy-ever-after outcome. It’s fair to suggest she would give her (First?) Minister a telling off and the Minister for all of the people of Northern Ireland will have to take note, as will Mary Lou. The United Ireland card has its appeal but it is not the panacea for all our ills.

So, polls are a “snapshot in time” and I’m not quite sure what that means but you can be sure that over a series of snapshots there will be ups and downs. It’s what might be called the yo-yo effect. Mary Lou will have a good day and her star will rise. Leo will have a bad day and his will wane. Micheál Martin will continue to burnish his image as a peace-maker, something he has plenty of practice at, as he has spent his leadership warding off challenges from within his splintered party. He has been as strong on the inhumane war in Gaza as he is allowed to be but he is beginning to blather on topics closer to home, such as RTÉ. Probably the one real success of the Government has been Eamon Ryan. He has progressed from being naïve to being sincere and serious.

And where does that leave the rest. The Kerry Independents, The Single Independents, the Group Independents, Labour, the Left, the Left of Left, the Social Democrats, People Before Profit, People After Profit, et al. There was a time in the IRA when the first item on the agenda was The Split. Now that mantle has been wrapped around a bunch of raggle-taggle, talented people, who are more interested in their own profile than in seeking some sort of cohesive response that might support an incoming administration and play a role in a new progressive government.

We’ve had 15/20 years of FG/FF/Labour government. It has not been bad government. The country is not in a bad place. In common with all developed economies we have problems with housing, health, education and drugs. And that’s not to mention the problems coming down the road - climate change and population movement, uncontrollable technologies, war, famine, pestilence, unequal distribution of wealth, discrimination and just about every other ill you could imagine.

So, there you have it and you don’t need any poll to inform you. Yes, it would be great to think that we will get a change after the next election, but who would want to be in government?

Who blinked?

That was a fascinating piece of television during the week. Former Mayo player Alan Dillon had the ball on the penalty spot. He was facing RTÉ DG Kevin Bakhurst. Dillon looked into Bakhurst’s eyes, he looked a second time. Bakhurst blinked and another RTÉ scandal was exposed. Can RTÉ recover? That would be a good subject for a poll.