No leader in Ipsos mrbi poll

Today’s IPSOS mrbi poll published in the Irish Times is reported widely in all of the other six morning newspapers. There is rightly comment on the decreases in support for the Fine Gael candidate Gay Mitchell and David Norris.

But none of the papers focus on the interpretation that the poll figures show Michael D Higgins, Martin McGuiness and Sean Gallagher as being level in the survey. When you take into account the margin of error there is no real gap between the candidates.

But this is not considered of by any of the morning papers and so Micheal D Higgins is leading with Gallagher second and McGuiness third, when in fact you cannot say conclusively that any of the three is in the lead.