Professor David Farrell:

Dr. Suiter made a point about the panel study earlier. That would lend itself to this exact issue because the idea of a panel study is that one can dip in at any stage. Therefore, in respect of the local elections in May, if we had an existing panel there would be no particular reason we could not go to that panel and ask it a series of questions around the time of the local and European elections. All is possible, provided the panel is there. The add-on cost for each additional wave would really be rather limited in the round. However, so far I am not aware of any studies about local elections. Colleagues in Trinity have done some work on elections to the European Parliament. Again, they cobbled together whatever little bits they could but it is highly limited.