File 5 - Reports and polls November-December 1990

68 pp

Lansdowne Market Research Report "Lansdowne/Sunday Press Presidential Opinion Poll, November 1st 1990"; typed letter from Robin J Addis, Managing Director, Lansdowne Market Research to Fergus Finlay, and cc'd to Nicholas Robinson (NR), in relation to Finlay's book "Mary Robinson - a President with a purpose", which disclosed that NR had commissioned a private qualitative research project, which Addis stated was confidential information, and which he was worried would reflect badly on the company since they were bound by very strict code of ethics. Polls were also conducted on behalf of others including Sunday Business Post and Sunday Press, and as a point of information, Addis draws attention to a poll conducted in October which was never published "because the 'tapes' episode blew up", but which showed the same number of first preference votes for MR as she actually received on 6th November, and concluding "...thus Mary Robinson had almost closed the gap on Brian Lenihan before the tapes episode. Given the momentum emerging at the time, pollsters would (should) have predicted that Mary Robinson would have been elected - albeit by a very slim margin - without any assistance from Fianna Fáil, Brian Lenihan or Charles Haughey over the tapes affair", 19/12/1990, [see Archivist's Note, P143/4/1].

Ref: P143/4/1/3/5

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