Exclusive devolution poll: day two

Day two of three-day series

Wednesday, May 07, 2008

BELFAST TELEGRAPH / IPSOS MORI POLL

Some of the results are surprising, some would have been expected, but all of them will have an impact on how Northern Ireland is run.

The poll was conducted by Ipsos MORI on behalf of the Belfast Telegraph during April. Ipsos MORI carried out 1,000 interviews among a representative sample of Northern Ireland population.

To achieve a representative sample, quotas were put in place for age, gender and employment status. The fieldwork was conducted by a team from Ipsos MORI's telephone research centre between 18 April 2008 and 27 April 2008.

The telephone numbers were generated using random digit dialling (RDD).

Ministers yet to prove themselves

By Chris Thornton

As a group and as individual ministers, the Stormont Executive is told today that they must do better.

Just over a fifth (21%) of the public thinks the Executive has done a good job since they took up office a year ago - that's compared to 28% who rated their collective performance as poor.

But the largest section of people who took part in the Belfast Telegraph/Ipsos MORI poll gave a neutral rating to their first year's performance - suggesting they are withholding their opinion until they see more.

Forty-seven per cent of the public said the Executive had been neither good nor poor in their first year. Catholics and Protestants were equally likely to rate the performance as poor over good.

Even among supporters of the DUP and Sinn Fein - the two lead parties in the Executive - there is no sign of significant enthusiasm.

Percentage who know a fair amount or a lot about each minister

Ian Paisley - 77%

Martin McGuinness - 67%

Peter Robinson - 56%

Nigel Dodds - 46%

Sir Reg Empey - 41%

Michael McGimpsey - 34%

Arlene Foster - 29%

Caitriona Ruane - 27%

Michelle Gildernew - 26%

Edwin Poots - 21%

Conor Murphy - 18%

Margaret Ritchie - 18%

DUP supporters even edged towards negativity - with 28% rating the performance as poor, compared to 26% saying it has been good. Among Sinn Fein supporters, 30% said the Executive has been good, with 26% declaring its performance poor.

Among the 12 ministers who make up the Executive, none of them found favourability with a majority of the overall public.

And sectarian politics also appears to still be at play. Protestants rated Protestant ministers higher than any Catholic ministers, and Catholics tended to do the opposite - with one exception.

First Minister Ian Paisley got the highest favourability ratings from Protestants and the second highest from Catholics, making him the only minister to break through sectarian divisions.

The outgoing DUP leader is considered favourably by 56% of Protestants and 37% of Catholics.

What may be most significant about the Catholic ratings is not Mr Paisley's second place finish, but the lack of warmth to other ministers that allowed him to finish so high.

Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness is the only minister to find favourability with a majority of Catholics (52%).

Eight of the 12 Executive members are looked on favourably by one-third or less of Catholics who took part in the poll.

Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie is the least well-known of any Executive member, but those who do know her rate her relatively well, probably because of her opposition to funding a community project supported by the UDA.

Ms Ritchie, the only SDLP minister in the Executive, got the highest rating of any nationalist among Protestants, with a 26% favourability rating.

She was also third behind Mr McGuinness and Mr Paisley among Catholics. Her South Down election rival, Education Minister Caitriona Ruane, finished fifth among Catholics. But she got the lowest rating of any Minister among Protestants at 8%, dragging her down to last place overall.

Although the public doesn't appear to be too impressed by Executive or its ministers so far, people do have faith in the new administration surviving.

More than two-thirds (69%) said they believe Northern Ireland will continue to have its own government for many years to come, compared to 12% who disagreed with that idea.

Almost half the public (48%) said they hold that opinion strongly.

More than three-quarters (77%) of DUP supporters believe the administration will last.

Among Sinn Fein supporters, almost two-thirds (65%) agree. Although more Sinn Fein supporters (21%) thought Stormont will not last than any other party - presumably because they believe it will be replaced by a united Ireland.

Politicians struggle for recognition

For politicians, recognition is like gold dust - hard to get and worth hanging on to.

Politics is a line of work where popularity matters. And the first step to getting people to like you is getting them to remember who you are.

So to gauge what the Northern Ireland public thinks of the ministers in the Stormont Executive, we first had to find out how well known they are.

The Ipsos MORI poll for the Belfast Telegraph asked 1,000 people how well they knew the 12 Executive ministers. Only those who had heard of the ministers were then asked for a view on their performance.

Not surprisingly, given that he's been a public figure for 50 years, First Minister Ian Paisley was the best known member of the Executive.

More than three quarters of the public (77%) said they know a fair bit about him or know him very well.

Who's popular and who's not

His partner in the First Ministers' Office, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, also scores high in the recognition stakes, with more than two thirds of the public (67%) saying they know him a fair bit or very well.

Finance Minister Peter Robinson - soon to replace Mr Paisley as First Minister - was the only other Executive member to finish with more than half the public saying they know him.

Those three leaders were also unknown to very few people - in fact, they were the only three Executive Ministers known at some level by 90% or more of the population.

Mr Robinson was unknown to 8% of the population, Mr McGuinness to 4%, and 3% said they had never heard of Mr Paisley.

But the survey makes it clear that being a member of the Executive doesn't automatically deliver that valued public profile.

Five Ministers - half the heads of departments - were each completely unknown to about one-third of the population.

Forty per cent said they had never heard of Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie, making her the most anonymous of the Ministers. Culture Minister Edwin Poots was unknown to 35%, Regional Development Minister Conor Murphy to 34%, 33% said they hadn't heard of Agriculture Minister Michelle Gildernew, with 32% declaring they did not know Education Minister Caitriona Ruane.

The most popular ...

Ian Paisley doesn't see much change in himself over the years, but it's clear that others do.

Once the primary hate figure of the Troubles for many nationalists - and considered by the unionist establishment as a dangerous demagogue or an embarrassment - Mr Paisley crowns his political career as the only Stormont Minister to break sectarian barriers.

Astonishingly, the man who once embodied sectarian division for many people got the second highest approval rating from Catholics. His decision to share power with Sinn Fein and his subsequent year as First Minister earned him favourable views from 37% of Catholics.

It would be too much to say he's been embraced by Catholics - 32% still give him an unfavourable rating, and one in five rate him as very unfavourable.

But it significant that he's generated more favourable feelings among Catholics than nearly all the ministers who come from that community.

That's all the more astonishing for those who remember that Dr Paisley's religious career made him an arch-critic of Catholicism and his political career was founded on being an unabashed enemy of nationalism.

Down the years, however, the First Minister has always maintained that even-handed constituency work had earned him some Catholic support. There was always some anecdotal evidence to support that, but now as he draws the curtains on his long foray into politics, he's got the stats to show as well.

... and the least

No one can doubt Caitriona Ruane’s enthusiasm - and stamina.

When she took on the high profile role of Northern Ireland’s Education Minister a year ago she had high hopes and embarked on an energetic series of visits and engagements. Her packed diary continues to this day.

Commentators warned that she had a bulging in-tray which included the contentious 11-plus debate, improving literacy and numeracy standards, the creation of a new single education authority, reducing the 50,000 empty desks in schools across the province, a revised school curriculum and primary schools battling for increased funding.

But 12 months down the line many of the major issues still have to be fully dealt with - including the prominent problem of reaching consensus with her Assembly colleagues on a new school transfer system.

The Minister’s relationship with the education committee is also on rocky ground following a number of stormy meetings and rows.

And at the highest level in the Assembly she also managed to rile her Executive colleagues by snubbing offers for a Ministerial sub-group to be set up to work on the school transfer issue.

Aside from a “vision statement” last December very little information has been provided on how Ms Ruane’s plans for a non-selective education system will actually work in practice. Anyone who dares to criticise or ask questions is accused of being against change.

The Minister is due to announce further details on her new transfer system next week.

This will either improve her popularity rating or - if the detail fails to impress - could ensure she stays at the bottom of the ministerial class.

A begrudging happy birthday to Assembly

Forget Happy Birthday. Today's poll blows out the candles early on the Executive's cake, with a stern 'must do better' warning. Political Correspondent Noel McAdam reports

If a week is a long time in politics, a year can seem an eternity.

But 12 months on, the jury is still out on the Stormont Executive, according to the results of today's Belfast Telegraph/ Ipsos MORI poll.

It will come as something of a surprise to ministers than almost three quarters of those polled (72%) say devolution hasn't made any difference to their lives.

And particularly for an Executive which has trumpeted the economy as its foremost priority, the lack of any significant impact must also prove an eye-opener.

That more register the performance of the Executive as 'poor' (28%) than 'good' (21%) is among the most telling of statistics, indicating that the trend for those who have formed an opinion one way or the other is coming out against.

The lack of legislation from the Executive and the Assembly, and lengthy wrangles such as the Victims Commission — as well as fairly regular long-fingering of issues, including the Shared Future strategy — must all feed into a public impression of creeping paralysis.

And though they have agreed a three-year programme for government, a comprehensive and hard-fought Budget and an investment strategy stretching ahead for a decade, these are achievements which appear to have registered in the public consciousness less than might have been expected.

One of the key battles, which helped lead to Iris Robinson being suspended from the chamber for a day, was over the health service, and additiional monies were eventually apportioned, but today's poll shows two-thirds of people believe the NHS is neither better or worse.

There is no doubt the Executive and Assembly have made major decisions, such as the historic compromise over reducing the province's 26 councils to 11 rather than seven, but there is little sense of momentum with weekly agendas for the legislature filled out with party and individual member motions. Too often it looks like our MLAs are simply killing time.

Yet even in terms of dealing with the unexpected, such as the crisis caused by last summer's floods and the Bluetongue scare, ministers are being given little credit.

Still, the glass may be more half full than empty. The fact that those questioned are blowing neither hot or cold — the largest single chunk (47%) simply saying the performance is neither good nor bad — can be interpreted as a modest form of success.

While relatively few are singing the praises of our collective administration, and marginally more are negative, the fact that almost half say neither good nor bad can also be seen as evidence that the Executive is bedding down, becoming part of normality, maybe even being taken for granted.

People go into politics to change things, but the perception of real change in our lives is rarely dramatic. Change, as we say, comes dropping slow. For the most part we tend to assimilate.

And even if arguably it isn't working well, in one sense it should be remembered we should perhaps be taken aback that it is working at all.

Who, even five years ago, would have put money on the DUP and Sinn Fein successfully sharing power together?

Politician popularity goes up in line with familiarity

So who says that politics is not a popularity contest?

Political Correspondent Noel McAdam looks at the Executive winners and losers, and their standing in the other community.

Last summer an incredible 48% of DUP supporters said Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness had performed well in office so far.

And Sinn Fein supporters returned the compliment, with an even higher proportion (54%) giving the same verdict to First Minister Ian Paisley.

The results appeared to belie people's expectations of how the two men would get on. Perhaps the chuckling proved infectious.

Nearly a year on, there's evidence that respect for their work hasn't translated into popularity.

Ian Paisley is given a 37% favourability rating with Catholics, while Mr McGuinness has just a 24% score among Protestants.

Yet at the same time the former self-confessed IRA second-in-command scores the highest of all the Sinn Fein Ministers with Protestants.

As time goes on, this must be about much more than just public profile.

Agriculture Minister Michelle Gildernew, who has developed a good rapport with farmers and business, has the next highest rating of 13% and Regional Development Minister Conor Murphy is on 12% with Education Minister Caitriona Ruane on just 8%.

Ms Ruane (with 33%), however, is fifth among Catholics questioned, behind Mr McGuinness (52%), Mr Paisley (37%) her South Down rival Margaret Ritchie on 34%, and Ms Gildernew, who is also on 34% (Ms Ritchie edges the Agriculture Minister with a lower unfavourable rating).

Ms Ruane did pip fellow Sinn Fein Ministers Mr Murphy (32 %).

Incoming First Minister and DUP leader Peter Robinson is just trailing the current incumbent of both positions, Mr Paisley (55% to 56% respectively) among Protestants but is 14% behind his soon-to-be predecessor with Catholics.

Given the depth of her difficulties in education, it is not surprising that Ms Ruane gains the highest unfavourable marking overall (46%). Her nearest rival, Ms Gildernew is a full ten percentage points behind. The Minister with the least unfavourable response is Employment and Learning chief, Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey.

On voting intentions, there are signals of changes to the nationalist lands cape.

Eyebrows will be raised by today's survey putting the SDLP two percentage points in front of Sinn Fein.

That may reflect waning fortunes for Sinn Fein after their trouble with the Southern electorate last year, but there are also reasons why that could be simply a mid-term blip.

Sinn Fein has historically polled lower than they actually perform in elections, and Ipsos MORI records a relatively significant number of undecided voters (16%).

Devolution 'hasn't made its mark yet'

After decades of strife and years of exhausting political negotiations, the return of devolution in May 2007 was hailed as a landmark event for Northern Ireland.

There's no reason to suppose that has changed — but after a year of steady, uninterrupted government by the Assembly and Executive, the public is less than impressed with the change.

As a key part of the Belfast Telegraph poll on the first year of devolution, Ipsos MORI asked 1,000 people whether the return of Stormont has made their lives better or worse.

Certainly the power-sharing administration hasn't generated much in the way of negative feeling — only 2% said it has made things worse for them — but it also clearly hasn't made much of a mark.

Almost three-quarters (72%) of the public said devolution hasn't made any difference to their lives.

Just over a quarter (26%) said their life has improved as a result.

Catholics are more likely than Protestants to see an improvement. Twenty-nine per cent of Catholics think their life has been made better, compared to 23% of Protestants.

A majority of every age group said devolution hasn't made a difference to their lives, but the opinion was most striking among young people. Almost nine out of 10 (87%) of 18 to 24-year-olds said it has made no difference, along with four out of five 25 to 34-year-olds.

The economy was one area where more people indicated they could see some improvement.

But two-thirds said they could not see any difference to the health system after a year of devolution.

Almost half (46%) of the people who took part in the poll said the Assembly has made no difference to Northern Ireland's economy.

But a significant number — 38% — said they thought the economy has improved. Another 10% said they see it as worse.

People in Belfast were far more likely to see an economic improvement than people outside the city. Forty-two per cent in the city and surrounding area said the economy is better. Areas west of the Bann were more likely to see no change.

Sixty-seven per cent of the overall public said they could see no change in the health service, with 16% saying it's better and 15% declaring it worse.

Protestant and Catholic views on the health service were almost identical. People in Tyrone and Fermanagh were more likely to think things have become worse — 23% compared to 9% in Belfast and 15% over all of Northern Ireland.

Slippage shows for SF

A new Assembly election is still a long way off, but the mid-term snapshot provided by today's Belfast Telegraph poll is worrying news for Sinn Fein.

The second largest party in the Assembly and Executive has slipped behind the other three Executive parties, including their nationalist rivals in the SDLP.

According to the poll, 11% of the population would currently give Sinn Fein their first preference vote in an election.

There may be reasons to treat the result with caution — Sinn Fein tends to register low in polls and 16% of potential voters remain undecided.

But the drop is a significant indication that the battle for dominance in nationalism is far from over.

Sinn Fein earned over 26% of the vote in last year's Assembly election, earning them the Deputy First Minister's post and three other seats at the Executive table.

The SDLP got 15% of the vote, translating into just one Executive seat.

Since then, Sinn Fein has experienced some difficulties — a poor performance in the Republic's general election, questions over Gerry Adams' leadership and the sense that the DUP is in a position to block projects like the Maze stadium.

Each of the four largest parties sees lower support levels than they received at the Assembly election.

But that is a natural reflection of the undecided people, who are not counted in an election.

The DUP remains the largest party with 20% support.

The UUP is second at 14% and the SDLP is third at 13%.

Jim Allister's Traditional Unionist Voice does not feature in the poll because the party has not yet stood in any major elections.

How our poll was carried out

During April 2008, Ipsos MORI, on behalf of the Belfast Telegraph, carried out 1,000 interviews amongst a representative sample of the Northern Ireland population.

To achieve a representative sample, quotas were put in place for age, gender and employment status.

The fieldwork was conducted by a dedicated team from Ipsos MORI's telephone research centre between 18 April, 2008, and 27 April, 2008.

The telephone numbers were generated using random digit dialling (RDD).

Complete survey results

The Findings
The use of the Research Findings is limited as follows: In the event that the Research Findings are attributed to Ipsos MORI or refer to Ipsos MORI, they shall not be used in the public domain including, without limitation, in advertising, marketing or promotional materials, press releases, or press conferences without the prior written consent of Ipsos MORI in order to ensure accuracy of data disclosure.

Note: The respondents to a survey are a sample of a total “population”, so we could never be certain that the figures obtained are exactly those that would have been if the entire population had been interviewed (the “true” values).  However, the extent to which the sample result varies from the “true” values can be predicted from knowing the size of the samples on which the results are based and the number of times that a particular answer is given. This level of uncertainty is represented as a “Confidence Interval” (CI), and means that we can be 95% confident that the “true”, underlying figure is within a certain distance from that measure by the survey sample.

Typically, the results derived from a sample of 1,000 will be within 3 percentage points of the true population value, given that the proportion experiencing a particular outcome is around 50%.  As this result moves away from 50% (either higher or lower) and / or the sample size increases, then this tolerance margin will get narrower.

Methodology
During  April 2008, Ipsos MORI, on behalf of the Belfast Telegraph, carried out 1000 interviews amongst a representative sample of the Northern Ireland population.   To  achieve a representative sample, quotas were put in place for  age,  gender  and  employment status. The fieldwork was conducted by a dedicated team from Ipsos MORI’s telephone research centre between 18 April
2008  and 27 April 2008.  The telephone numbers were generated using random digit dialling (RDD).