The first thing to be noticed about the survey is the relatively high number of people who said they are going to church once a week or more. It comes in at almost one in four people.
The reason that is a surprise is because other polls in recent times have indicated that the number is lower than this, especially post-Covid. To the almost one in four that attend church services at least once a week can be added another 12% who go once a month or so.
The survey in question was conducted on behalf of the Electoral Commission on the day of the two referendums in March, one of those being on carers, and the other on the family. Both were overwhelmingly rejected.
More than 3,500 people were interviewed as they left polling stations, so this was a big survey. The Commission wanted to find out why people had voted as they had, and then ask a range of other questions about such matters as political affiliation, attitudes to immigration and the Traveller community, trust in the media and other institutions as well as on church attendance.
Findings
The finding on Church attendance is basically a proxy for Mass attendance as the religiously observant section of the population remains overwhelmingly Catholic.
For the record, 36% of respondents said they only attended church rarely, and another 28% said they never go, while 2% did not give a response. Whether you attend Mass or not, made a pretty big difference to how you voted.
If only those who never go to Mass had voted, then the referendum on “durable relationships” would have passed with 54% of the vote when in fact it attracted only 32pc of the overall vote.
Interestingly, regular Mass-goers were more likely to vote Yes than the average because 39% did so according to this poll.
Perhaps that is because Mass-goers are on the older side and are still quite loyal to either Fine Gael or Fianna Fail, and those parties backed a Yes vote.
But there is a pretty big caveat about the polling findings in general, which is that Yes voters were a lot more likely to talk to pollsters than No voters.
For example, while 68% of people voted No to the proposal to insert the term “durable relationships” into the Constitution, only 57% of those who took part in the survey did do. That is an 11-point difference.
So, why were No voters more reluctant to be interviewed for the survey than Yes voters? The survey report offers a reason. It says: “Non-response bias is the likely explanation for the under-representation of No voters, where No voters were more likely to refuse to take part in the survey than Yes voters”.
“Unfashionable viewpoints are quite likely to be consistently condemned and demonised”
In plain English, this means No voters were shyer about speaking to interviewers. Why would this be? The likely reason is because of the predominance of certain viewpoints in public debate. When you don’t hear your own point of view being expressed that much in public and you hear a different point of view being aired all the time, it will make the average person reluctant to say what they really believe except when they are in safe company.
Furthermore, unfashionable viewpoints are quite likely to be consistently condemned and demonised. This will make a person who does not go along with fashionable viewpoints even less likely to say anything, and that includes speaking to pollsters.
We saw this as work in the same-sex marriage and abortion referendums of 2015 and 2018. They were heavily carried but in the first case almost 40% of voters still voted No, and in the second case, one in three did so, but all you could see in both instances were people wearing Yes badges. People were scared to wear Vote No badges.
But No voters were the overwhelming majority in the last two referendums. The carers referendum, which would have removed the word “mother” from a key part of the Constitution was beaten by 74% to 26%, and the one on “durable relationships” by 68% to 32%. However, No voters were still reluctant to admit how they voted.
I wonder if No voters who did speak were still shy to give their reasons for voting the way they did to pollsters?
Both sets of voters were asked why they voted either Yes or No. In the case of the carers’ referendum, for example, most Yes voters said they regarded the Government proposal as a “step in the right direction”, or that it would “modernise” the Constitution.
Most No voters said they did not have enough information, or the proposal was too vague. Only 6% said they voted No to protect the role of mothers and women. But is this finding accurate?
Discussions
It was perfectly clear that the Government wanted to remove the reference to mothers and homes from the Constitution and replace it with a gender-neutral reference that would no longer mention the home.
Online discussions again and again expressed opposition to removing the word “mother”. Even if you allow for the sake of the argument that only a minority of No voters were most concerned about this, was it really as low as 6%, or were such voters still reluctant to make such an admission to a stranger, in this case a pollster? My bet is with the second explanation.
By the way, we can see in some of the follow-up questions in the survey what I would consider to be a bias, however unconscious, on the part of the Electoral Commission itself. For example, it asked respondents if they would mind having a Traveller in the family and whether people believe immigration is good for the economy.
Was the first question to try and ascertain if No voters are more small-minded than Yes voters? And is the second case, why not ask people if they think immigration is too high?
They were also asked to agree or disagree with the statement: “All in all, family life suffers when the woman has a full-time job”. (24% of Yes voters and 36% of No voters agreed with the statement).
But why not ask if they believed mothers should have the choice to either go out to work or stay at home as the case may be?
So, in some of the questions asked on behalf of the Electoral Commission we can see a bias in favour of what we will call a liberal point of view.
“This is a suppression of the sort Ireland was supposed to have abandoned in favour of ‘openness’”
This sort of thing makes those who don’t go along with publicly dominant viewpoints even more reluctant to express their true opinions and makes it ever harder to read the real public mood on issues.
Does this seem healthy from a democratic point of view? Far from it. Instead, what we see is that even when people hold traditionalist, but perfectly moderate views on issues like motherhood, they are reluctant to say so.
This is a suppression of the sort Ireland was supposed to have abandoned in favour of ‘openness’. Perhaps we haven’t changed as much as we think.
Why traditionalist voters are shy about talking to pollsters
The first thing to be noticed about the survey is the relatively high number of people who said they are going to church once a week or more. It comes in at almost one in four people.
The reason that is a surprise is because other polls in recent times have indicated that the number is lower than this, especially post-Covid. To the almost one in four that attend church services at least once a week can be added another 12% who go once a month or so.
The survey in question was conducted on behalf of the Electoral Commission on the day of the two referendums in March, one of those being on carers, and the other on the family. Both were overwhelmingly rejected.
More than 3,500 people were interviewed as they left polling stations, so this was a big survey. The Commission wanted to find out why people had voted as they had, and then ask a range of other questions about such matters as political affiliation, attitudes to immigration and the Traveller community, trust in the media and other institutions as well as on church attendance.
Findings
The finding on Church attendance is basically a proxy for Mass attendance as the religiously observant section of the population remains overwhelmingly Catholic.
For the record, 36% of respondents said they only attended church rarely, and another 28% said they never go, while 2% did not give a response. Whether you attend Mass or not, made a pretty big difference to how you voted.
If only those who never go to Mass had voted, then the referendum on “durable relationships” would have passed with 54% of the vote when in fact it attracted only 32pc of the overall vote.
Interestingly, regular Mass-goers were more likely to vote Yes than the average because 39% did so according to this poll.
Perhaps that is because Mass-goers are on the older side and are still quite loyal to either Fine Gael or Fianna Fail, and those parties backed a Yes vote.
But there is a pretty big caveat about the polling findings in general, which is that Yes voters were a lot more likely to talk to pollsters than No voters.
For example, while 68% of people voted No to the proposal to insert the term “durable relationships” into the Constitution, only 57% of those who took part in the survey did do. That is an 11-point difference.
So, why were No voters more reluctant to be interviewed for the survey than Yes voters? The survey report offers a reason. It says: “Non-response bias is the likely explanation for the under-representation of No voters, where No voters were more likely to refuse to take part in the survey than Yes voters”.
In plain English, this means No voters were shyer about speaking to interviewers. Why would this be? The likely reason is because of the predominance of certain viewpoints in public debate. When you don’t hear your own point of view being expressed that much in public and you hear a different point of view being aired all the time, it will make the average person reluctant to say what they really believe except when they are in safe company.
Furthermore, unfashionable viewpoints are quite likely to be consistently condemned and demonised. This will make a person who does not go along with fashionable viewpoints even less likely to say anything, and that includes speaking to pollsters.
We saw this as work in the same-sex marriage and abortion referendums of 2015 and 2018. They were heavily carried but in the first case almost 40% of voters still voted No, and in the second case, one in three did so, but all you could see in both instances were people wearing Yes badges. People were scared to wear Vote No badges.
But No voters were the overwhelming majority in the last two referendums. The carers referendum, which would have removed the word “mother” from a key part of the Constitution was beaten by 74% to 26%, and the one on “durable relationships” by 68% to 32%. However, No voters were still reluctant to admit how they voted.
I wonder if No voters who did speak were still shy to give their reasons for voting the way they did to pollsters?
Both sets of voters were asked why they voted either Yes or No. In the case of the carers’ referendum, for example, most Yes voters said they regarded the Government proposal as a “step in the right direction”, or that it would “modernise” the Constitution.
Most No voters said they did not have enough information, or the proposal was too vague. Only 6% said they voted No to protect the role of mothers and women. But is this finding accurate?
Discussions
It was perfectly clear that the Government wanted to remove the reference to mothers and homes from the Constitution and replace it with a gender-neutral reference that would no longer mention the home.
Online discussions again and again expressed opposition to removing the word “mother”. Even if you allow for the sake of the argument that only a minority of No voters were most concerned about this, was it really as low as 6%, or were such voters still reluctant to make such an admission to a stranger, in this case a pollster? My bet is with the second explanation.
By the way, we can see in some of the follow-up questions in the survey what I would consider to be a bias, however unconscious, on the part of the Electoral Commission itself. For example, it asked respondents if they would mind having a Traveller in the family and whether people believe immigration is good for the economy.
Was the first question to try and ascertain if No voters are more small-minded than Yes voters? And is the second case, why not ask people if they think immigration is too high?
They were also asked to agree or disagree with the statement: “All in all, family life suffers when the woman has a full-time job”. (24% of Yes voters and 36% of No voters agreed with the statement).
But why not ask if they believed mothers should have the choice to either go out to work or stay at home as the case may be?
So, in some of the questions asked on behalf of the Electoral Commission we can see a bias in favour of what we will call a liberal point of view.
This sort of thing makes those who don’t go along with publicly dominant viewpoints even more reluctant to express their true opinions and makes it ever harder to read the real public mood on issues.
Does this seem healthy from a democratic point of view? Far from it. Instead, what we see is that even when people hold traditionalist, but perfectly moderate views on issues like motherhood, they are reluctant to say so.
This is a suppression of the sort Ireland was supposed to have abandoned in favour of ‘openness’. Perhaps we haven’t changed as much as we think.
New Bishop Chairman: No special path for Germany in reforms
Bishop Coll: young Catholics seek ‘doctrinal solidity, not adaptability’
Late Bishop Willie Walsh honoured with plaza on first anniversary
Dr Slim urges humanitarian shift as Trócaire warns of climate impact
Top TOPICS
Unsurprisingly, quite a few Lent related items featured in the media last week. The News
When I was in college, back in the days when the earth’s crust was still
Dear Editor, Garry O’Sullivan makes valuable points concerning the accountability of deceased clerical sexual abusers
Bishop Niall Coll’s recent remarks mark a significant moment in the lead-up to the upcoming