Poll reveals Fine Gael’s tax-cut ‘kite’ has failed to fly for Leo Varadkar

The latest Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks poll finds last month’s tax-cut call by three junior ministers did little to enhance Fine Gael’s popularity among voters, with 56pc of those polled saying it would make no difference to their voting intentions.

That call, described by rivals as a political ‘kite’, sparked a bitter row with Fianna Fáil.

This weekend tensions have further escalated over climate action concerns.

In an interview with the Sunday Independent, Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue criticised a lack of leadership from Fine Gael on environmental issues. It comes in the wake of a damning EPA report last Friday, which found the State is projected to fall well short of its plan to reduce emissions by 51pc within the next seven years.

Despite 59pc of those polled favouring the €1,000 tax cut for people earning the average household income of €52,000 a year, more than a fifth of voters (22pc) said it would make them less likely to vote Fine Gael. Just 15pc said it would make them more likely. This falls to 10pc when Fine Gael voters are excluded. The party is also unchanged in the state of the parties’ poll at 20pc.

Meanwhile, McConalogue this weekend hit out at Fine Gael’s European grouping, the European People’s Party, for pulling out of talks on the EU nature restoration law.

“We have to be adults and show leadership in relation to how we actually get on with that job, and I think the approach the EPP has taken at a European level has been the opposite of that,” he said.

The Fianna Fáil minister claimed a compromise he was involved in negotiating at EU ministerial level will avoid farmers being compelled to allow bogs to rewet, in order to restore biodiversity. But last week the Taoiseach insisted Ireland cannot support the draft law as it stands, warning of its impact on food production and prices.

The bog rewetting stand-off has already inflamed tensions between Fine Gael and the Green Party, whose junior minister Malcolm Noonan also hits out at the EPP’s decision in today’s Sunday Independent. Fine Gael has not distanced itself from the EPP pulling out of talks last week.

“It’s no coincidence the extreme position taken by some MEPs in the European Parliament to stop the law is occurring a year out from the European and local elections,” writes Noonan, who is Junior Heritage Minister.

“At a time when we’re seeing the most agriculturally productive regions of Italy and Spain destroyed by extreme floods and droughts, this is irresponsible at best.”

McConalogue also took issue with recent claims by former Irish Farmers’ Association president Eddie Downey at a private Fine Gael meeting that food inflation will “go through the roof” because of the growing number of environmental obligations being placed on farmers.

“There’s an onus on everyone now, in all parties, to advocate that sustainable pathway forward and that balanced pathway forward,” said McConalogue. “I certainly wouldn’t agree with Eddie Downey’s comments in particular.”

He added that it is “not acceptable, from an agriculture and food point of view, that we’re not nurturing biodiversity and restoring nature”.​

Despite a number of Coalition splits in recent weeks over tax, land restoration, facial recognition technology and roads, the Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks poll finds the public’s appetite for a snap general election has fallen substantially in the last nine months.

Only 18pc want an immediate election now — an 11-point drop since last September. By contrast, 45pc of those polled want an election as scheduled in 2025, up 13 points on nine months ago. The latest the next election can take place is March 2025.

Meanwhile, in alarming news for the Green Party, it has now become the most transfer-toxic party in the country. The poll found 48pc of voters would exclude the Greens entirely from voting transfers at the next election. This is just ahead of Sinn Féin (46pc), with Mary Lou McDonald’s party historically the least transfer-friendly party.

In a forced choice, 40pc of those polled would return the current Coalition, unchanged on last month. But support for a Sinn Féin-led government excluding Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil is down four points to 38pc, with those not sure up four points to 22pc.