Mr. Sean Donnelly:

Looking at the polls that were published in the lead-up to the last general election, the exit poll was very close to the actual outcome. Indeed, that poll showed Fine Gael on 36.1%, which is exactly what it got. The poll underestimated the Fianna Fáil vote by two percentage points. We have to bear in mind that voters are allowed to change their mind coming up to election day, as often happens in referenda. Just because a person tells a pollster two weeks before the election date that he or she will vote for Fianna Fáil, there is no obligation on the person to follow through on it. People have free agency in this regard.

There have been problems with the reliability of poll findings. The main polling companies, including those which conduct polls for The Irish Times, The Sunday Business Postand so on, have an excellent record. However, rogue polls are published and we must be very wary of them. Before the last election, the Sunday Independentpublished a series of constituency polls which seemed to have been done on the back of an envelope. They were absolute rubbish. That type of thing should not be allowed because it gives everybody a bad name.

I am wary of suggestions that an electoral commission might have a role in making decisions around polling. In France, a decision was taken to suspend polling in the last week of campaigns, and there was a similar proposal here. Poll findings can work either for or against a party. When leaked poll data showed that Bertie Ahern, as then leader of Fianna Fáil, was heading for an overall majority in the 2002 election, Michael McDowell climbed up a lamp post in Ranelagh and everything changed. As I said, it can work both ways. People may get frightened at the prospect of a particular party winning an overall majority, which can lead to a rowing back of support for that party. If one is in the game, one has to go with it.

In general, the polls produced in Ireland over the years have been pretty good. Everybody is talking about how the polls in Britain did not reflect the actual outcome of the recent general election. I do not know enough about that matter to give a view.