Voting intentions in Ireland - 84% of all adults in Ireland plan to vote in the next Irish General Election, with lowest plans to vote amongst 18 to 34 year old's with only 65% planning to vote compared to 93% of 55+ voters.

With recent UK Elections in the News and plans for an Irish Election in the coming weeks, iReach ran a survey of adults in Ireland last December on their intentions to participate in upcoming Irish elections as well as their intent to vote if an election were to happen now in Ireland. We also asked adults in Ireland on their expectations for the UK General Election and the impact on Ireland.

Voting intentions in Ireland

84% of all adults in Ireland plan to vote in the next Irish General Election, with lowest plans for voting amongst 18 to 34 year old's with only 65% planning to vote compared to 93% of 55+ voters.

Of those not planning to vote, 30% are not registered and 25% stating they know nothing about politics in Ireland.

This is highest at 37% of 18 to 34 year old's. 35% of all Non-voters state they feel that they are wasting their time, highest amongst older demographic of 55 year old's and older, reaching 65%.

Irish General Election 
If there was a simple vote tomorrow, we asked which party would get their single vote, the main parties dominate;

Fine Gael 21%
Fianna Fail 15%
Sinn Fein 13%
Green Party 11%
Labour Party 6%

If people had a single vote for a party leader, the would vote for:

28% selected Leo Varadkar,
15% Michael Martin
14% for Mary Lou McDonald.

 UK General Election 
Looking to the UK we asked Irish adults which party they expected to win the majority of seats with 50% expecting there to be a Hung Parliament and 23% expecting the Conservatives to win and only 13% expecting Labour to win.

However when asked which main party winning the UK General Election would be best for Ireland, 24% voted for the Labour Party, 19% for the Liberal Democrats and only 10% for the Conservatives. 36% of adults in Ireland believe a Hung Parliament would be best for Ireland.


About iReach Insights iReach Insights provides a range of research and market intelligence services in Ireland and Europe. iReach has built a Consumer Decisions Research Panel of 40,000 members in Ireland, delivering robust research insights. The survey questions were included in the Nationally Representative iReach Consumer Decisions Omnibus delivering 1,000 responses from adults 18+, and run between the 21st – 28th November.

These findings have a 2.5% Confidence Interval and 95% Confidence Level. Questions asked of participants:

Q1. Did you vote in the last General Election? 

Q2. Do you plan to vote in the next General Election?

 Q2a. What would stop you voting? 

Q3. If there was an election tomorrow and you had one vote, which party would you vote for? 

Q4. If you had one vote to select the leader of a single Political Party to become Taoiseach, who would you vote for from the list below?

Q5. Ignoring smaller or regional parties in the UK (SNP, DUP, Plaid Cynru etc.) which large party do you expect to win a majority of seats at the General Election in the UK on 12th of December?

Q6. Thinking about the impact of the UK General Election on Ireland, and assuming they win a majority, which main party winning the UK General Election would be best for Ireland?