FIANNA Fail and the Progressive Democrats have widened their lead over the three Government parties to eight percentage points, according to a new poll today.
Their combined share of the first preference vote is 46 per cent, compared to 38 per cent for the three parties in the Rainbow coalition, according to the survey carried out by Irish Marketing Surveys for the Irish Independent.
Support for the Labour Party has dropped from 14 per cent to 10 per cent.
The gap of eight percentage points is four points down on the Fianna Fail/PD lead recorded in the Irish Times/MRBI poll published last Thursday.
The state of the parties, excluding the undecideds, is: Fianna Fail 41 per cent; Fine Gael 26 per cent; Labour 10 per cent; PDs 5 per cent; Green Party; 4 per cent; Sinn Fein 4 per cent; Democratic Left 2 per cent; Workers' Party 1 per cent; others 7 per cent.
When asked to chose between the Government parties and a Fianna Fail/PD coalition, the gap narrows to six percentage points.
The poll shows that 48 per cent of voters agree with the recent suggestion by the leader of the PDs, Ms Mary Harney, that social welfare supports should be restructured so as to encourage young single mothers to remain with their own families, while 40 per cent disagreed and 12 per cent said they did not know.
Asked who they would prefer to see as Tanaiste in the event of a Fianna Fail/PD government, 41 per cent opted for Ms Harney and 36 per cent for the deputy leader of Fianna Fall, Ms Mary O'Rourke.