Michael Marsh, Emeritus Professor, Trinity College Dublin, takes a look at party support since February 2015.

We are now around the mid-point of the inter election cycle, assuming this Dáil last five years.

This would have been a huge assumption two years ago, and a Spring 2021 election may still be unlikely, as initial talks between the Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil leaders remain inconclusive, with Micheál Martin apparently suggesting one more year and Leo Varadkar looking for a little more.

With the politicians now 'on holidays’, and the pollsters also taking a break, no more polls are expected until September so it is a good time to assess the state of the parties.

Since the general election in February 2016 we have had more than 60 polls from the main companies, most of them from RED C and Behaviour and Attitudes, with a few from Ipsos MRBI, Millward Brown, and a new company Ireland Thinks.

The most recent poll from B&A for The Sunday Times is one indicator of where things stand, but given variations in methodology, the reality of sampling error and events having a very short-term impact it is worthwhile taking a longer view.

What I have done here is to look at the polls since February 2015, a period which includes the run up to the last election and the two and a half years since that vote.

I show the long-term trends for three parties, Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin and for the varied group of Others, including Labour, Greens, Solidarity, Social Democrats and Independents.

The graphs show each poll, a trend line and the level of support won by that party or grouping at the last election.

This last one is useful as a rough indicator of whether a party might gain or lose if there was to be an election imminently, but also shows us how far the polls in February 2016 tended to overestimate or underestimate the support that was won in the election.

We can start with the main government party, Fine Gael. The last year has been a good one for it with the upward trend of Spring 2017 continued.

All polls have placed the party above its disappointing 26% of the vote achieved in February 2016 and this year the party has consistently been in the mid 30s, a very long way away from the low 20s where it found itself at the start of 2017.

There is little sign though that Fine Gael is pushing on towards 40%. Support seems steady now rather than rising.

In contrast, Fianna Fáil’s support is far from steady and looks to be falling, with that decline growing in pace in recent months.

This time last year the party had been polling above its general election standing, but over the last six months many polls have suggested support is no more than 25%, with three of the four most recent ones giving the party rather less than that.

B&As most recent poll equalled the worst for the party since the election, but the earlier observation looked more like an outlier than does this one.

We can also look at Fine Gael’s lead over Fianna Fáil in the polls. While this was significant in the run up to the last election that advantage almost vanished on election night, and for the next year or so Fianna Fáil was usually the largest party.

Under Leo Varadkar over the last year this lead has been re-established and is back to 2015 levels. Of course, that picture could be misleading, and it could certainly be undermined by a poor campaign, let alone the perception of an unnecessary election, but it is still sizable.

Sinn Féin has consistently polled above the 14% it won in 2016, but then it did so before that election as well.

In recent time its trajectory does seem to be upwards, with many seeing this bounce as down to Mary Lou McDonald.

Certainly, some of its best figures have some in the last few months but there are reasons to be cautious given the fact that the Sinn Féin vote has been overestimated in the past.

It is also worth remembering that Sinn Féin support in the B&A/RTÉ exit poll - of actual voters - at the time of the referendum in May 2018 saw the party getting just 16%.

I show support for Others in a single graph. It is important to note that the polls underestimated their support at the last election but the trend was downwards after the election and the last year has seen this continued, perhaps with some levelling out in 2018.

Only two polls over the last year has found support for Others above general election levels and most have suggested support is way below what it was early in 2016.This applied to just about all of those making up this diverse group.

Support for the Labour Party has often been as close to the 7% it won then, but it has never been above that point and has often been below it.

While the Green Party has consistently been close to the 2-3% mark, the Social Democrats and Solidarity have typically recorded half of the support levels won in 2016. Independents have also fallen short.

Arguably these mid-term polls will underestimate support for smaller parties and independents but there is certainly no sign of any of them imposing themselves on the public mind yet.

There are significant methodological differences between the different polling companies in terms of how they contact respondents, how they conduct interviews, the ordering of questions, the weighting of the sample to try to ensure it is representative and possible allowances made for the many people who will not actually vote.

There are also differences between the pre and post-2016 election methods, at least to the extent that the samples will be weighted in part by recall of 2016 voting and not 2011 voting.

Companies also differ in the degree of prompting with respect to the smaller parties, which may explain the particularly large variations in the figure for Others.

Average support for each party across each company, even allowing for timing, does vary somewhat.

Some of these differences are small, notably with respect to Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, but some are large, notably with respect to Others but also to Sinn Féin.

At present, there is no election imminent but if there was to be one expectations based on the trends described above and typical votes/seats translations would give Fine Gael 59 seats, Fianna Fáil 38 and Sinn Féin 35, with the Others sharing the remaining 28 seats.

Hence big gains for Sinn Féin and Fine Gael, and a small loss for Fianna Fáil but most importantly, with 81 seats required for an overall majority, some complex negotiations once again would be required before we would have a new government.