Fianna Fail left reeling after its worst ever poll drubbing
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FIANNA Fail has been left reeling by the worst opinion poll result in its history with backbenchers openly admitting they are worried about their seats.
The party's support has plummeted to 26pc -- a 10pc drop in the space of a month and a 14pc fall in support since June.
It has also suffered a blow to one of its core values -- competent handling of the economy -- with 59pc of people polled saying they did not have confidence in the Government's ability to manage public finances out of the downturn.
But the Red C/Sunday Business Post poll shows that the public dissatisfaction with the Budget cutbacks -- including the medical card and income levy measures -- has boosted the opposition parties.
Fine Gael has increased its support by 5pc to 33pc and has overtaken Fianna Fail for the first time since opinion polling began. Although Government sources claimed that Fine Gael would have to reach 40pc in the polls before it could threaten Fianna Fail's position as the biggest party, the level of support is a boost for Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny.
Fine Gael finance spokesman Richard Bruton hailed the poll as evidence that voters were losing confidence in the Government.
Floundering
"People have seen the Government floundering in the face of an economic downturn which they failed to prepare for; and they see appalling errors made by that Government, which seems to be quite out of touch, and I think the Government have created this," he said.
Although he did not rule out tax increases under a Fine Gael-led government, he said that radical reforms, such as cutting 5,000 public sector jobs in a voluntary redundancy programme and "hunting down waste", were part of the solution.
"This Government have forgotten that we're a small trading economy, we survive not by selling property to one another but by being a strong exporting country," he told RTE's 'This Week' programme.
The Labour party, under leader Eamon Gilmore, has increased its support by six points to 15pc. It said this rating was the highest it had ever received in a Red C poll.
"We think it reflects the strong performance of our party leader Eamon Gilmore and the parliamentary party in recent weeks," a spokesman said.
Sinn Fein increased its support by 1pc to 10pc; and independents and others -- which include former Government-supporting TD Finian McGrath -- are unchanged at 8pc.
But the Green Party, which has come under sustained attack from the opposition for its role in Government, is down by 1pc to 6pc.
Setback
However, a spokesman for the Greens denied that it was a setback for the party.
"It signifies that the public identifies us as a niche party doing what we said we would do. And it gels with some other research the party has been doing in the past week," he said.
He said the unpublished focus group research indicated the public had positive views of the party's efforts to tackle energy security, climate change and local government reform.
The PDs are down by 1pc to 2pc in what may be their last ever time being measured in an opinion poll. Party members are due to meet in Mullingar on November 8 to decide on the winding up of the party -- with all the parliamentary members in favour of the move.
- Michael Brennan Political Correspondent
