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Niall Carson/PA
neck and neck
Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil tied for top spot, new opinion poll suggests
The Business Post/Red C poll has Sinn Féin up five points at 24%.
7.45am, 2 Feb 2020
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SUPPORT FOR SINN Féin has increased once again according to a new opinion poll, putting the party in joint first place alongside Fianna Fáil.
The Business Post/Red C poll has Sinn Féin up five points at 24%, Fianna Fáil on 24% and Fine Gael on 21%.
This poll of 1,000 voters follows on from yesterday’s Panelbase poll for The Times that saw support for Sinn Féin jump ahead of Fine Gael for the first time this general election campaign and only trailing Fianna Fáil by two points.
With less than one week until polling day, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil are both down by two points respectively on the last comparable poll earlier this month.
Despite recent opinion polls revealing that Sinn Féin is continuing to perform well, both leaders of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have ruled out going into coalition with Mary Lou McDonald.
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Leo Varadkar said he does not trust Fianna Fáil not to go into government with Sinn Féin, while Fianna Fáil has accused Fine Gael of the same.
Meanwhile, the Green Party is down one point to 7%, while Labour is up one to 5%.
Independents are down two points to 10%, while the Social Democrats are unchanged at 3%, with Solidarity-PBP down one at 1%.
Aontú is up one point on 2% support, while other parties are listed as having 1%, according to this Red C poll.
A statement from @rte re scheduled #GE2020@RTE_PrimeTime Leaders Debate- “At the outset of the election RTÉ set out its approach to leaders debates based on empirical data. That has not changed. .. 1/2
Responding to the results of the poll, RTÉ released a statement about its leaders’ debate on Tuesday, to say that they would continue to consider “representations made”.
Sinn Féin has repeatedly called for its leader Mary Lou to be included in the leaders debate; RTÉ has defended it’s decision to keep it between Martin and Varadkar as the two candidates to be Taoiseach, based on previous electoral results.
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Sinn Féin moves into second place ahead of Fine Gael, new opinion poll says
Off the back of this poll, it can be argued that Sinn Féin is as likely to lead a government as Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
RTÉ’s statement today said: “At the outset of the election RTÉ set out its approach to leaders debates based on empirical data. That has not changed.
“Throughout the campaign RTÉ has considered representations made by those contesting the election regarding our coverage and leaders debates. We will continue to give consideration to any representation made.”
The telephone poll of 1000 voters was carried between 25 and 30 January, and the margin of error is plus or minus 3%.
Updated by Gráinne Ní Aodha
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Being poor in the countryside is far worse pressure than being in towns and cities where you usually live along with poor peers & so have less stress trying to pretend your coping & in the countryside u have to pay school “voluntry” contributions etc as to not embarrass your kids and yourself among your better off neighbours & thus doing without proper food & clothes for a while. Plus the poor urban school would also have “disavantaged” gov status & more gov funding. Snobby society needs to stop putting so much pressure on everyone to be perfect in every aspect of life. Exams, relationships, housing, careers & car types etc. If people are allowed live their life in their way u will see a huge suicide reduction.
@Kerry Blake: Nothing Kerry they are too busy holding meetings about the dress code and prayers in the Dail …anything other than what they are paid to do.
@Kerry Blake: They’re closing down beds for child mental health. That’s the government’s response to this epidemic. If Leo becomes taoiseach, we can only expect it to get much worse
@Kerry Blake: raise more taxes make life more unbearable make more unreachable deadlines out the blue for people to despair over take their homes sell to vulture funds leave the unemployed with no way out make the working poor skint so they can either eat or pay some bills not all because is unattainable. Cause more despair isn’t that what ALL plastic Tory governments do.
Ah yeah and help the rich who have no real worries three meals a day and credit and a brand new car to look good in their business exploiting the poor so that the so call recovery seem to be real .
@George Beckett: no it is not self inflicted to fear the bills on the post that you cannot make it and the deadlines you cannot afford is not self inflicted
Massive issue with suicide in Ireland? Solution- close off 50% of the beds and don’t recruit psychiatric nursing positions for adolescent mental health services. Very fcuking Irish that is
Maybe the minister would look at funding the systems that help his faux cause. This is a serious matter, one that all of us folk have been living ( we’ve nearly all seen a suicide). We don’t need a minister to reiterate what we have been through. We need a minister that will be able to offer hope, a future, a reason.
And FG’s policies are behind many of those suicides. They couldn’t care less about ordinary people who have been thrown under a bus to protect wealthy & influential people who are their friends / associates & backers.
@Setrakian: absolutely. I’ve seen many friends loosing everything I seen people all ages worry about everyday I live in fear myself is all Bills and worry . Any simple thing become a massive problem like fix the car to nct if it doesn’t pass you stress extremely as neither you could afford this extra bill and now you didn’t pay your mortgage and there is other three bills coming and if you get stopped they take your car and you can’t afford another and without it you can’t work and you will lose your home for not paying by then you can’t afford food put the money into parts in between getting it fixed you worry about getting it taken away by police . Rich people hasn’t a clue what that is like . That’s just an example I seen happen 3 people this year
The important message here is if you are reading this message and feeling suicidal please seek help.
There is always light at the end of the tunnel. Google how did it feel to commit suicide on Internet forums and you will see how thankful those people are that they failed.
There is no shame in seeking help.
It rips families apart, with knock on effects on the following generation. I know from experience sadly.
That is an incredibly high number. Quite shocking. How are these statistic gathered? If accurate this is actually the greatest crisis the country is facing.
That’s right minister, our suicide rates (especially among young people) are among the highest in Europe. Never mind reporting, what is YOUR government going to do about it? Not enough Jigsaw type projects. No funding to implement whole school approaches to youth mental health and suicide prevention in schools. Disgraceful lack of Children & Adolescent Mental Health services and beds. That is YOUR responsibility. Saying you can’t recruit staff without paying them more is not good enough.
Do your job and ensure that our children and young people have the services they need to support their mental health and help them when they are suffering from mental health difficulties. It is a national tragedy and shameful that are statistics are so appalling. You must do whatever it takes to change it.
Can we please stop using the term ‘committed suicide’…it is no longer a crime in this country, thankfully…we seem to be so caught up on being PC about everything except this…when in fact it is quite important to families…
Mr Naughten seems more concerned with the perception of information around the issues, than the addressing of the issues themselves. Just another talking head political prop, suggesting the blame for uploaded material is with the chosen platform, not the uploader & the particular incident he referred to can hardly be said to be that. Dail privilege will still be applicable though so the only concerns there are with “fake news” is from the media sources that propagate it
Defence Forces have a known suicide problem since an “independent third party” study in 2005 showed a higher than expected suicide rate. So the military authorities are aware of the problem as is the Department of Defence.
So imagine the surprise when, in a response to a Parliamentary Question by Aengus O Snodaigh, the Minister for Defence Paul Kehoe admitted the Defence Forces DON’T BOTHER keeping suicide statistics.
So much more needs to be done honestly it goes so much deeper than organisations as someone who suffered from suicidal ideation a lot we need to provide people with the tools of self awareness
Talk therapy , meditation reiki get successful survivors involved who have made their way out of it. I don’t see a lot to praise with current system I’m sorry to say.
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