Simon Harris says ‘all to play for’ in election despite Fine Gael polling slide

There is “all to play for” in the Irish General Election, Taoiseach Simon Harris has said, despite polling numbers that suggest support for his Fine Gael party is on the slide.

Backing for Fine Gael has slumped by six percentage points, according to the latest poll.

Mr Harris’s party now trails both Fianna Fail and Sinn Fein, the Irish Times/Ipsos B&A survey indicates.

Fianna Fail leads the way on 21% in the latest poll, up two points on the last survey by the paper two weeks ago.

Sinn Fein is on 20%, up one, while Fine Gael is on 19%, down six points since the November 14 poll.

Ireland goes to the polls on Friday.

A Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks poll published at the weekend still had Fine Gael in the lead, on 22%, however it also recorded a sharp drop in support for the party, down four points on the paper’s last poll.

The Sunday Independent poll had Sinn Fein on 20%, up two points, and Fianna Fail unchanged at 20%.

Asked on Monday if he was on the back foot in the campaign, Mr Harris told RTE’s Today With Claire Byrne show: “I fully accept that this is a three-race tie.

“There’s three parties all on roughly 20% across a number of published polls. It is all to play for.

“Not one vote has been cast. And I’m humbly asking people to lend me and lend Fine Gael their number one vote, because we have a plan. We have the funding to deliver that plan.”

Mr Harris said the crucial takeaway from the polls was the potential implication for forming a “stable” and “coherent” coalition government post-election.

The last coalition saw Fine Gael and Fianna Fail form a historic coalition, with the Green Party serving as a junior partner.

“We don’t need six months, seven months, eight months of navel gazing,” he said of the prospect of lengthy negotiations and wrangling to form a government.

“We’ve got to be able to hit the ground running, whoever is going to be in government, and on these numbers if would be tricky for anybody.”

Monday’s poll, which was carried out between Thursday and Saturday, comes after Mr Harris apologised over the weekend after criticism of his handling of an encounter with a disability care worker while canvassing in Kanturk in Co Cork on Friday.

The Taoiseach was accused of dismissing concerns that Charlotte Fallon raised about Government support for the disability sector, during the exchanged filmed in a supermarket.

Mr Harris rang Ms Fallon on Saturday and said he unreservedly apologised for the way he treated her.

On Monday, Mr Harris said he “let himself down” during his much-criticised interaction with Ms Fallon, but was confident that voters would not judge him on what was captured on a 40-second video clip.

“I let myself down,” he told RTE Radio One.

“I’m deeply annoyed with myself, and there’s no-one more annoyed with me than me, and particularly on an issue that I feel incredibly passionate about.

“I mean, I have been that 16-year-old teenager who’s watched my own mother cry with frustration at being a mother of a child with special educational needs (Mr Harris’s brother is autistic).

“I know what it’s like. I know what it’s like to be in a family where you feel isolated, where you feel let down, where you fight for services. And, on that issue, of all issues, I am so passionate about it.”

Mr Harris added: “I don’t think fair people and decent people, and that’s what people right across this country are, will judge me on 40 seconds on a Friday evening.

“I think they’ll judge me on my record. They’ll judge me on what I’m going to do over the next five years, what I want to do, what Fine Gael wants to do, and the plans that we’ve put forward to, for once and for all, fix and rectify disability services.

“That is my burning desire. It’s something that I’ve prioritised since becoming Taoiseach.”

The clip from Kanturk is one of several incidents that have put Fine Gael under pressure during the election campaign, including comments made by Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary about teachers, in the first few days.

Mr O’Leary was criticised for saying at a Fine Gael candidate launch that he would not hire teachers to “get things done” , which drew laughs and cheers from the gathered party faithful.

There has also been a furore over whether senator John McGahon should have been selected as a Fine Gael candidate for the Louth constituency.

Mr McGahon was found not guilty of assaulting a man outside a Dundalk nightclub in a criminal case two years ago, but a High Court civil action earlier this year found him liable, and he was ordered to pay damages.

On Monday, Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin said many votes remain to be won in the coming days.

Asked about the latest opinion polls, he said he does not get “excited” about them.

“When you say I’m not a polls man, that was probably the most accurate statement you’ve made in the sense that we’re still all around 20-odd percent, give or take,” Mr Martin told reporters in Dublin.

“You can go up or down 2% so I’m not getting in any way excited about these polls.

“We would have always felt that the three parties, Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Sinn Fein, were in about the 20s. But the real poll is on (Friday).

“There is a degree of volatility there.

“There’s a lot of votes to be won yet, and there are a lot of issues on the doorstep.”

He said the days before polls open will be “very challenging”.

“I’ve experienced this before the last election and so on, when the last number of days can be crucial in terms of maintaining clarity on the message, and there’ll be attempts made all wrong to confuse the situation, but we’re very clear that we have a lot of work to do.”

Mr Martin also said addressing issues in the disability sector was a priority for his party.

On coalition permutations, he said a government comprising more than three parties would be very challenging to manage.

“I think it would be very challenging,” he told RTE.

“I’ve led with three parties, with the Green Party, Fine Gael and ourselves, and that was complex, challenging, but we did it.

“And I’ve always said, by the way, from the outset of the campaign, that my sense was it would be a three-party coalition government of some form after this general election, it’s very competitive.”

Responding to her party’s ratings in the latest opinion poll, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said she had met “zero per cent of people” with any confidence in Fine Gael or Fianna Fail’s ability to address Ireland’s acute housing shortages.

Ms McDonald told the Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk: “The great beauty of the campaign is that you get to be out and about everywhere, talk to people.

“I have met zero per cent of people with any confidence in Fine Gael or Fianna Fail sorting the housing crisis.

“I have met countless people who are chilled at the idea that Fianna Fail would say out loud they should have the housing ministry again.

“I think people looked at that prospect and said there is no way on God’s green earth that we can tolerate or endure another five years of failure from Fianna Fail or Fine Gael.”

With regard to the smaller parties, Monday’s poll has the Greens on 4%, up one; Labour on 4%, down one; Social Democrats on 6%, up two; People Before Profit on 3%, up one; and Aontu on 3%, no change.

Independents (including the Independent Ireland party) are on 17%, down three percentage points.

In terms of personal favourability, Mr Harris’s popularity is down from 50% to 46%, while Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin is on 44%, down one point.

Ms McDonald is unchanged on 31%.