#GE2020 Exit Poll: Health a key factor for voters

Sun, 09 Feb, 2020 - 08:07

Steve Neville

Health was a major factor in how people voted in the general election, according to an exit poll.

The IPSOS MRBI poll - carried out by the Irish Times, RTÉ, TG4 and UCD - has found that 32% of those polled felt health was the most important factor in deciding how to vote.

Last night's exit poll found

The figures have predicted that 22.4% of voters backed Fine Gael, while Sinn Féin looks set to get 22.3% and Fianna Fáil could get 22.2% support.

The exit poll surveyed around 5,000 people at 250 polling stations across the country yesterday.

RTÉ stated that "Questions on who someone voted for, their age, gender and what region they are from were asked of all respondents, and have a margin of error of 1.3%.

"However, in order to give an insight into the reasons why people voted certain ways, 15 additional questions were also asked of respondents, who were split into five different groups of 1,000 people and asked three questions each.

"These 15 questions have a margin of error of 3.1%."

When asked about what was "most important to you in deciding how to vote", health and housing were the major factors.

32% said health was the most important with housing and homelessness making up 26%.

Brexit made up merely 1%, with 8% saying pension age was most important and climate change was 6%.

Business Minister Heather Humphreys said it was not a mistake for Fine Gael to put Brexit at the centre of its reelection strategy after an exit poll found only 1% of people cited Brexit as a factor in how they voted.

“A lot of people obviously thought Brexit is over… Brexit is far from over,” she told RTÉ Radio One's Morning Ireland.

“Brexit is still a big threat but some people live in the moment and a lot of people thought Brexit has gone away – it has not gone away.”

Asked if she thought it was a mistake by party strategists, Ms Humphreys said: “No, I don’t because at the end of the day we have told people the facts and we have told them the truth. We have had a difficult campaign because after nine years of government people want to see something different.”

She expressed confidence in Leo Varadkar to remain as leader of Fine Gael after the election and ruled out the party going into coalition with Sinn Féin.

“The gap is too wide between us and Sinn Féin,” she said.

“I am very happy for Leo Varadkar to continue to lead Fine Gael party, the last few days have seen a swing towards Fine Gael and that shows that the Taoiseach performed well in the TV debates and that people began to think change might not be for the better, in fact change might be for the worse.”

The full result of the exit poll question was: