Dáil bike shed leaps onto political agenda as a big issue for voters

The controversy over the €336,000 Dáil bike shed has cut through to capture voters’ attention in the last month, according to the latest Irish Times/Ipsos Snapshot poll.
Housing and immigration continue to be issues that attract the most attention from voters. But this month they are joined by a storm over the Leinster House bike shed, which jumped on to the political agenda after the significant cost of the project was revealed.
Members of the Oireachtas finance committee last week questioned civil servants about the price paid, with the meeting also hearing that an uncovered security hut at the neighbouring Department of Finance had cost €1.4 million.
When asked what they have noticed about what the Government has said or done recently, 18 per cent cited the issue of housing, while 12 per cent nominated immigration — the same number who cited the Dáil bike shed.
The survey does not investigate what people regard as the most important issue; it seeks to establish what people are noticing about what the Government is doing and whether they have a positive or negative view of that.
Large majorities (77 per cent and 86 per cent respectively) of respondents have a negative view of the Government’s actions on housing and immigration. In those cases, minorities made positive comments about those issues, with some voters believing that the administration is making progress on housing.
But in the case of the Dáil bike shed 100 per cent of comments on the issue were negative. The sudden prominence of the shed in the public mind is a reminder of how quickly political controversies can erupt.
Other issues noticed by the public in the last month were healthcare (5 per cent), social policies (5 per cent), climate change (3 per cent), education (3 per cent) and democracy/political process (3 per cent).
Today’s poll also suggests that as the general election approaches, issues of an economic nature are gaining prominence. The budget/spending was nominated by 4 per cent, cost of living by 3 per cent, employment by 3 per cent, taxes by 3 per cent and the economy by 2 per cent. Taken together, issues of a general economic nature are cited by 15 per cent of respondents. Just 2 per cent mentioned the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Snapshot is the monthly attention poll designed to track which Coalition messages are cutting through. It asks the following question: “What have you come across in what the Government has said or done recently that has made you think the country is going in the right or wrong direction?”
Respondents’ answers are then collated and sorted by issue and whether they view the Government in a positive or negative light as a result.
This question is asked of 1,000 citizens each month. The data was collected using Omnipoll, Ipsos’s telephone omnibus survey, which interviews a fresh, nationally representative sample of 1,000 adults aged 15+ every two weeks.
The sample used is RDD (random digit dialling) and includes mobile and landline phone numbers. At analysis stage, the data is weighted in line with the known profile of the population according to the latest Central Statistics Office estimates.
The results presented here exclude those who said “don’t know/nothing/no opinion” to the question. Fieldwork for the latest wave of Snapshot was conducted between September 1st and 14th.