Housing and cost of living most-raised issued at doorsteps, Cork general election candidates say

Some 95% of Cork candidates who responded to a poll by The Echo believe the next general election will take place in November, while 69% said they had received abuse as candidates, either online or in person, with that figure rising marginally to 70% among female candidates.

The poll was carried out over the weekend and the start of this week, with efforts made to contact the 46 candidates at that time declared in Cork’s five constituencies, with 39 responding by Thursday, giving a response rate of 85%.

Of the issues coming up on the doorsteps, 64% said the single most significant issue they were hearing was housing, while 21% said it was the cost of living, and 8% said they were hearing people raise disability services most.

Some 20% of respondents said the second most significant issue they were hearing on the doorsteps was disability services, while 15% said it was the cost of living, and 8% said it was water quality.

A further 8% each said the third most significant issue they were hearing was immigration, the cost of living, and crime.

Asked whether it was time for Cork city to have a directly elected mayor, 56% of respondents said it was. However, perhaps because only two of Cork’s five constituencies are city-based, 15% of respondents offered no opinion on the issue of a directly elected mayor.

Respondents were also asked who they believed should be the next taoiseach, and who – regardless of the respondents’ personal feelings - they believed would occupy the taoiseach’s office after the general election.

With only two of the candidates so-far declared in the county’s five constituencies non-party Independents, perhaps unsurprisingly, respondents tended to reply along party lines when asked who they felt should be taoiseach.

The top three results in that poll gave 10 votes to Simon Harris, 9 to Micheál Martin, and six to Mary-Lou McDonald.

However, when asked who they believed would be the next taoiseach, respondents gave perhaps a slightly more clear-eyed view of what they believed might be the likely outcome, with Simon Harris receiving 16 votes, while Micheál Martin and Mary Lou McDonald remained on 9 and 6 respectively.