Category: News
Date: 10.03.2005
Printable version
A new poll jointly commissioned by 91Èȱ¬ Newsnight and the Belfast Telegraph suggests that six out of ten nationalists - including almost half of Sinn Fein voters - believe the IRA should disband now.
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As the republican movement remains in crisis following the murder of Robert McCartney and the Northern Bank robbery, the poll indicates that the very existence of the IRA is being questioned within Irish nationalism.
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Fifty-nine per cent of Sinn Fein supporters say the IRA should decommission all of its weapons and 44% say the IRA should disband.
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Sixty-one per cent of those polled said they believed the IRA was responsible for the Northern Bank raid.
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Forty seven per cent said they were dissatisfied with the response of the Sinn Fein leadership to the murder of Robert McCartney.
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Twenty nine per cent said they were satisfied - the rest didn't know.
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The poll suggests Catholics and Protestants are divided about what the Secretary of State Paul Murphy should do now.
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Forty three per cent of Protestants say he should bring back the Assembly, but exclude Sinn Fein from ministerial positions.
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Forty seven per cent of Catholics say he should bring back the Assembly with the full participation of all parties.
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A poll question posed at the same time by the Belfast Telegraph suggests the DUP has established an increased lead over the Ulster Unionists and that Sinn Fein and the SDLP are now level pegging in the battle for nationalist votes.
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The poll, conducted at the start of this week, estimates DUP support at 28%, Sinn Fein at 20%, the SDLP at 20%, the UUP at 16% and Alliance at 4%.
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The trend on the unionist side appears relatively clear. The poll suggests the DUP is up 2.5 points in comparison to the Assembly election of November 2003, and up eight per cent in comparison to a similar poll conducted earlier that month. The UUP is down 6.5 points in comparison to the Assembly election and down ten points in comparison to the poll.
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On the nationalist side the picture is more confusing. In comparison to the 2003 Assembly election Sinn Fein appears to be down 3.5 points and the SDLP up three points. But in comparison to the pre-election poll in 2003 Sinn Fein have maintained the same level of support and the SDLP have dropped two points.
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The pollsters, Millward Brown Ulster, say the poll doesn't suggest any huge slippage in the Sinn Fein vote although there may be some slight erosion in the party's middle class support.
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The only conclusion they believe can be drawn is that the nationalist battle is very competitive.
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Notes to Editors
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Millward Brown Ulster interviewed a representative sample of 1,010 Northern Ireland adults on Monday and Tuesday of this week.
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All interviewing was face-to-face and was conducted at 56 randomly-selected points according to the standards of the Interview Quality Control Scheme and the Code of Conduct of the Market Research Society.
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Please credit 91Èȱ¬ Newsnight.
