Latest polls
Support for the Coalition Government has slumped in recent months, according to the latest Irish Times/Ipsos Mori poll.
Fine Gael has dropped to its lowest level of support since the Ipsos poll began in 1994, with the party dropping to 18 per cent. Fianna Fáil has slipped to 20 per cent support.
Confidence in Sinn Féin has increased again and support for the party stood at 36 per cent, its highest level yet.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said he wouldn’t allow policy to be dictated by the poll and that the Government was going to go the distance.
“I’ve always seen this as a Government that goes the whole distance. I see that as my role as Taoiseach,” he said.
Refugee accommodation
Micheál Martin has said the UK government’s Rwanda scheme may have resulted in an increase in international protection applicants in the Republic.
The Taoiseach made the comments after it emerged on Wednesday night that Ireland had a “severe shortage” of State accommodation for Ukrainian refugees.
Speaking from Government Buildings on Thursday, Mr Martin said that of those at the reception centre for Ukrainians at Citywest in Dublin, 70 per cent are now international protection applicants.
Inflation
Inflation hit 9.1 per cent in the year to June 2022, as the Central Statistics Office (CSO) confirmed consumer prices saw the largest increase since the 1980s.
The CSO’s Consumer Price Index soared to a 38-year high in June, recording its largest annual increase since 1984 when annual inflation stood at 9.7 per cent.
Up from an annual increase of 7.8 per cent in the year to May 2022, the main drivers of the inflated cost of living are housing, energy and transport prices.
Irish heatwave
The weather is going to gradually get warmer over the coming days, before highs of up to 31 degrees Celsius are forecast to hit the country early next week.
Met Éireann has issued a high temperature advisory for the end of this week and into next week during which Ireland is set to be “uncomfortably warm”.
Temperatures are forecast to widely reach the high 20s and possibly exceed 30 degrees in some areas on Sunday and early next week.
