THE VAST MAJORITY of Irish people would favour spending the year in summer time if Ireland scraps Daylight Savings Time, a new poll has revealed. 

The Claire Byrne Live and TheJournal.ie poll, carried out by Amárach Research, found that 81% of respondents would prefer summer time year round, rather than winter time. 

The European Parliament voted last week in favour of abolishing seasonal time changes. 

Summertime arrangements in the EU require clocks to be changed twice per year to cater for the changing patterns of daylight and to take advantage of the available light.

If the planned change goes through, that will no longer happen and Europe will stick with the same time all year round. 

It means that in 2021 we could put our clocks forward, as we’re used to, at the end of March, but then stick with that time into the future without switching back in October. 

Ireland and other member states are being given a period of 12 months to decide if they’ll stay on summer time or not.

The matter has already been put out to public consultation in Ireland, with Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan saying he is open to the idea of scrapping clock changes.

Staying on summer time – rather than winter time – will mean longer evenings than we’re used to in winter, but it will also mean that it will remain darker for longer in the winter mornings.

Only 19% of people surveyed said that they would prefer to stay in winter time. However, sleep expert Dr Annie Curtis of the RCSI TheJournal.ie that from a health point of view, permanent wintertime would be preferable.  

We delved into the issue a lot more in our most recent episode of the Explainer podcast:

You can listen wherever you get your podcasts or via SoundCloud below – you can also head straight to iTunes, Spotify, Acast, PodBean, Podcast Republic, and Stitcher. 

The Explainer / SoundCloud

With reporting from Daragh Bropy