Latest news with #IrelandThinks
Irish Post
04-08-2025
- Politics
- Irish Post
Irish public do not approve of a Trump state visit, poll finds
A NEW opinion poll shows that a majority of the Irish public does not support the idea of inviting Donald Trump for a state visit to Ireland. According to research conducted by Ireland Thinks for the Irish Independent, 74% of respondents said they were against such an invitation. Just 20% were in favour, while 6% expressed no opinion. Participants were asked whether the Irish government should officially invite Trump for a formal visit. Trump was recently in Scotland, where he played golf and met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to finalise a trade agreement. During his presidency, he also made private visits to his golf property in Doonbeg, County Clare, and met with then-Taoiseach Leo Varadkar at Shannon Airport during a brief stopover in 2019. He spent a night at his resort in Doonbeg on that occasion. The Irish public's perception of Trump stands in stark contrast to the warm welcomes historically given to previous US presidents. In 1995, Bill Clinton drew a crowd of 80,000 in Dublin's College Green. A similar reception greeted Barack Obama in the same location during his 2011 visit. Former President Obama and his wife, Michelle, have now been invited by Dublin's current Lord Mayor, Ray McAdam, to formally accept the Freedom of the City next month. The invitation includes a ceremonial reception at the Mansion House. In his letter to the Obamas, Mayor McAdam praised the former president's leadership during a turbulent period in American history, noting his "dignified and hopeful" approach to governance that inspired many globally, including in Ireland. See More: Donald Trump, Irish State Visit
Irish Independent
03-08-2025
- Politics
- Irish Independent
Kevin Cunningham: Catherine Connolly likeliest to be seen as ‘Continuity Michael D' in presidential race
Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks poll shows how Gaza could become 'wedge issue' in race for Áras Catherine Connolly is marginal favourite among those who support the Occupied Territories Bill. Photo: PA Catherine Connolly and Mairead McGuinness have challenged the assumption that a late entry would be politically costly. Instead, a two-horse race is now taking shape. Join the Irish Independent WhatsApp channel Stay up to date with all the latest news
Irish Independent
03-08-2025
- Business
- Irish Independent
The Sunday Independent's View: EU's supporters must examine why it is losing voters' trust
Beyond a few cranks, there is no real appetite for any form of 'Irexit'. Indeed, the most recent Eurobarometer survey, which tracks public opinion across the 27 member states, found that Ireland continues to share the highest level of trust in the EU's institutions, along with Poland. There are some clouds, nonetheless, on which political weather-watchers would do well to keep an eye, lest they rain on any future parade. On two key markers, those being the continuing nightmare in Gaza and the trade deal the EU concluded last week with US president Donald Trump, today's Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks poll reveals growing angst at the direction being taken in Brussels. About seven in 10 respondents rate the EU's performance on Israel-Gaza as either bad or very bad. More than half (58pc) also regard the EU's performance on the tariff deal as bad or very bad. Dissatisfaction goes well beyond those two issues. On question after question, Irish voters give a resounding thumbs-down in this poll to the bloc's efforts to tackle problems they are facing every day, be it the cost of living (63pc take a negative view) or immigration (68pc negative, with 0pc rating the EU's performance as 'very good'). Overall, 63pc say their opinion of the EU is either somewhat or much disimproved since the start of the conflict in Gaza, up significantly from 51pc a year ago. These are remarkable figures in a country where there are rarely any stirrings of discontent at the EU, and fewer still since Brexit starkly demonstrated the perils of isolationism. There is no room in the Irish political marketplace for Euroscepticism It speaks of a lack of appreciation of the potential of conflict in Gaza to destabilise domestic politics in Europe. Add in the spanner that Trump has thrown into the works by strong-arming the EU into a trade deal that increasingly appears to represent a capitulation to US might, and the potential for further disruption is obvious. There is no room in the Irish political marketplace for Euroscepticism. Most of us recognise that EU membership has served us well. All the same, complacency must be avoided. Europe has always been able to hide its differences under a comfort blanket of economic stability. The current omnishambles of crises rocking trust in the EU has only been exacerbated since Trump came into office, as he lives up to his reputation as a Great Disruptor. The leverage he now exerts over our economic and political discourse may be uncomfortable for anyone who values democracy over dominance. A significant 77pc of people in our poll believe the EU should have been prepared to risk some disruption of its own by standing up to Trump more on tariffs. Doing so might even have been the making of the EU. Those who cherish the solidity provided by European solidarity must at least use the space provided by the US trade deal, imperfect as it is, to finally confront the bloc's internal divisions. It is these, rather than any malicious actions by the White House, that could prove its undoing. Paying humble attention to the disaffection indicated in our latest poll, rather than breathing a sigh of relief that it has not yet spilled over into more toxic forms of protest, would be a good start.
Irish Independent
06-07-2025
- Irish Independent
Most people don't think dodgy box owners should be prosecuted, as 14pc admit to owning one
It comes as 64pc of respondents said they don't agree that owners of 'dodgy boxes' should be fined or prosecuted by the courts. Meanwhile, 18pc of Irish people think the box owners should be prosecuted, while 18pc were not sure. The poll, conducted by the Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks on Friday, July 4, asked more than 1,500 people three questions about the ownership of a 'dodgy box'. A 'dodgy box' is an illegal TV device that lets users watch premium channels for free without a subscription. The majority of people in Ireland don't own a 'dodgy box' as more than three in four (76pc) people answered 'no' when asked whether they own this device. Meanwhile, 14pc of people in Ireland own a 'dodgy box' and 10pc said they prefer not to say. Almost half of the people (49pc) said they would not consider getting a 'dodgy box' while 16pc said they are not sure. However, 35pc said they would consider getting it, with this figure including respondents who already own a box. Last month, Sky Ireland warned up to 400,000 dodgy-box users of 'consequences' if caught streaming sport or films using the illegal devices. The broadcaster is also set to use private investigators to monitor WhatsApp chats to detect who is buying dodgy boxes, and is also considering civil action against individual users for the first time. However, the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) will meet the broadcaster to discuss whether such methods are legal according to GDPR privacy law. The streaming services are commonly sold through WhatsApp groups and other online discussion forums, where details of local dealers are provided. In Ireland, using a dodgy box to stream pirated content is an offence under the Copyright Act, punishable by up to five years in prison or a fine of up to €127,000. However, gardaí have consistently declined to pursue individual consumers of dodgy boxes, reserving action instead for commercial operators and distributors of the services.
RTÉ News
18-05-2025
- Politics
- RTÉ News
The maths behind the public votes at Eurovision 2025
Pollster Kevin Cunningham explains how the nature of Eurovision voting influenced the outcome When it comes to the public votes cast at the Eurovision, we need to take elements like 'diffuse alternatives' and 'motivated reasoning' into consideration. This is according to Dr Kevin Cunningham, a lecturer in politics at TU Dublin and the founder of the Ireland Thinks polling company. First, there's 'diffuse alternatives', Cunningham explains. "If Israel were on the ballot, let's say, and that was the principal thing people were voting on, there's only one Israeli option and 24 other non-Israel options. So that means that the relative concentration of support within the Israeli option tends to be a little bit higher." From RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland in May 2024, why did Ireland give Israel 10 points at Eurovision 2024? So what vote share would we expect Israel to have gotten to get to second place? "If we look at the result from previous years' Eurovision finals, the second place got around 13 or 14% in the last two years, so we might expect that it only takes 13 or 14% for someone to actually get to 2nd place. That means that quite a large proportion might actually have been voting for others." We also have to take 'motivated reasoning' into consideration. "We see this in politics when it comes to turnout in elections and turnout in referendums", explains Cunningham. "When we see turnout in referendums become very low we notice that the results become quite skewed. If turnout in a referendum gets lower than 35% the people who are more motivated, more interested, tend to influence the outcome a little bit more". In the case of Eurovision, it's even more extreme. "Because we know that even of those that viewed the Eurovision, only around 6 or 7%, from previous data, actually vote", says Cunningham, "so it means that it's at the extreme end. But then what accentuates this even more is the number of times that you can vote. You can vote up to 20 times so that influences it to a massive degree in reality. "You could imagine there are certain people who vote once or twice for a given song, and then there might be some people who vote 20 times for the exact same song or country. By definition, taken together with the low turnout and also the scale in which people might be voting, it necessitates, basically, an extreme preference for whoever tends to win, or otherwise. If you imagine a room of 100 people and 99 of them vote once, and one of them votes 20 times, based on our sums, you could expect that one to actually win."
