It's easy to believe that the more the results of an opinion poll appear to contradict each other the more accurate they're likely to be. Take the latest in the Irish Times/MRBI series, which covers decommissioning, the Budget, electoral reform, satisfaction with the Government and voting intentions.
There's little doubt about attitudes to decommissioning which is, by any standards, the most important issue facing politicians and the public on this island.
It's also one on which the major parties in the Republic agree. So do their supporters, as the poll shows: 86 per cent of those questioned said the IRA and other paramilitary organisations should decommission now. The only evidence of uncertainty was among the supporters of Sinn Fein, 44 per cent of whom were for decommissioning, with 41 per cent against and 15 per cent undecided.
Sinn Fein spokesmen and supporters in the media are often inclined to shrug off opinion in the Republic as of little consequence. It's either too ill-informed or too remote, they say, to be relevant to affairs in the North.
In any event, as Conor Cruise O'Brien has pointed out, since the republican movement is in the front line of a pan-nationalist struggle, it reserves the right to insist on others following where the Provos lead. And when Bertie Ahern's views on decommissioning were considered unhelpful by commentators sympathetic to Sinn Fein it was because he had failed to toe the republican line.
Paradoxically, remoteness doesn't seem to affect the judgment of those in the United States who support republican paramilitaries - the people who like to hear a bang for their buck. Nor did Sinn Fein and its allies complain of the southern electorate's opinion when the Belfast Agreement was embraced by an overwhelming majority in this State.
The finding on decommissioning in this week's poll was not quite as decisive, but it was significant for the same reason: it reflected a desire to share this island, not to dominate it. And it echoed a challenge to the republican movement already expressed by political leaders of all shades but, most urgently, by David Trimble.
On issues other than decommissioning there were contradictions galore, most of them apparent, some real enough, and a few calling for special attention.
The electorate is in two minds about the Budget, with a clear majority dissatisfied. The score is 52 per cent to 40. And fewer than one-third think it should be allowed to remain as it stands. Two-thirds believe it should be changed to take account of criticism or scrapped and rewritten. Those who thought so were invited to say why.
It was an open-ended question. These were the answers, as a percentage of the dissatisfied: individualisation, 38; not enough for the poor or lower paid, 27; all for the rich, 12; not enough for the old, 12; not enough for children, childcare and the health services, and delays in welfare increases, three each.
So the causes of dissatisfaction were not confined to individualisation and related issues, as some commentaries have suggested; almost twice as many were dissatisfied because the Budget was designed for the better off.
And there was little or no difference between the middle and working classes here, which confirms views expressed in the November poll and separate findings in this week's survey on the ambition to make this a fairer society.
Dissatisfaction with the Budget, in view of Charlie McCreevy's determination to ignore the needs reflected in the November poll - and other, more specific advice - was less surprising than the Opposition's failure to win more support among its critics. Fine Gael gained three points, largely on the strength of an incisive critique by Michael Noonan on Budget day and in spite of some nonsensical commentaries which confused John Bruton's jibe about McCreevy's K Club style with an attack on women.
Although Derek McDowell, too, was impressive in the Dail, Labour paid the price of a three-point drop for a more genteel approach than its audience expected. This, I suspect, applies not only to the Budget but to a range of issues on which the party acts as if it were afraid of provoking an election.
In the circumstances, with McCreevy, Ahern and Mary Harney combining to turn an embarrassment of riches into an embarrassment, Fianna Fail did well to hold its own - a core vote of 39 per cent, its first preference total in the last general election.
Only half of those who say they'd vote for Fianna Fail or the PDs are satisfied with the Budget; 45 per cent in either case are not. And ail FF supporters like those of other parties are opposed to changing the way in which TDs are elected.
The contradiction between party support and attitudes to the Budget or electoral change seems greater when the poll's tallies are adjusted to exclude the 21 per cent who are undecided. Then, the FF total increases from 39 per cent to 49 - and in days like these that's the stuff of headlines.
Seriously, though, it's a figure which must be taken with a grain of salt. It assumes a turnout of 79 per cent and we haven't had such a showing since Brian Boru was a lad. In fact the turnout for general elections has been falling for decades; it was under 68.5 per cent in 1992 and below 66 per cent in 1997.
In the latest European and local elections it was little more than half, and in the Dublin South Central by-election just over 28 per cent.
It's because of this and the now predictable exaggeration of FF support that Jack Jones of MRBI has devised a formula which, in the present case, sets FF's tally at 44 per cent, Fine Gael at 28 and Labour at 14.
The revision also sets the smaller parties - Progressive Democrats, Green Party and Sinn Fein - at 4 per cent, which is probably more realistic than the ratings they enjoy in either the core or adjusted columns.
That still leaves the contradiction between dissatisfaction with the Budget and the Coalition's satisfaction rating, which has risen to 55 per cent this week - nine points up from the nadir in November.
It sounds good until you remember that in May 1997, a month before the last general election, the centre-left coalition's satisfaction rating was almost 50 per cent, nine points ahead of the dissatisfied. A month later, with the help of Payback Time and four independents, Ahern, Harney and McCreevy were heading for Merrion Street.
The present rating is as much a reflection on the Opposition's failure to present an alternative as a show of confidence in the incumbents.