The latest Eurobarometer national report shows that there is the very extensive support for European monetary union and the euro and that Ireland’s support for EU and IMF intervention is significantly more positive than that found among the EU 27 as a whole.

Field work for the poll was conducted last November. The full report and graphics can be found on the Eurobarometer website here: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb/eb74/eb74_en.htm

Support for EU/IMF intervention is 55% in Ireland compared to an average of 38% across the EU Member States. “The results show that the Irish public is willing to pursue a multilateral rather than a unilateral approach to the issues in the current crisis,” said Professor Richard Sinnott, one of the authors of the report.

Support for European Monetary Union and the euro amongst those questioned shows in Ireland, at around 80%, it remains much higher than the EU average of 58%. Since its introduction support has grown from about 60 to 80 %, tailing off slightly in this survey.

The poll was taken between 11 and 25 of November last, covering both the period before and after the arrival of the EU/IMF team. This makes it possible to compare attitudes before and after the intervention and shows a perceptible change at that point. When attitudes towards who was best equipped to deal with the crisis are measured, support for the EU as best-equipped remains more or less constant at 32 and 33%. However, the poll shows that support for the IMF goes up from 16% to 27% while perception of the Irish government as most effective drops from 19% to 10%.

On the wiser economic front, those polled were much more likely to say that the Irish national economic situation was ‘very bad’, at 84%, more negative than any other Europeans – even those also in difficulty such as in Greece (65%) and Portugal (49%). The slide in positive perception of the Irish economic situation from 2007 to 2010 in successive Eurobarometer polls has been precipitous, falling from 80% to 3%.

The field work for the next Eurobarometer will be conducted in May with consolidated results out in the following months.

The results of this poll are based on face-to-face interviews with a balanced population sample of 1000 people conducted by TNS. The report was written by Professor Richard Sinnott (UCD Geary Institute) and James McBride (Irish Social Science Data Archive).