The Belfast Telegraph reported on Saturday that the public was not much impressed with the performance of the Assembly and Executive over the two years since its restoration. In a LucidTalk poll taken earlier this month almost half (45%) said that they had made no impact on life in Northern Ireland, while most of the rest were almost equally divided between those who thought they had had a positive impact (27%) and the 26% who felt they had made life ... Read more...
The Belfast Telegraph reported on Saturday that the public was not much impressed with the performance of the Assembly and Executive over the two years since its restoration. In a LucidTalk poll taken earlier this month almost half (45%) said that they had made no impact on life in Northern Ireland, while most of the rest were almost equally divided between those who thought they had had a positive impact (27%) and the 26% who felt they had made life worse. (2% did not express an opinion.)
And when it came to the individual reports on the 10 Executive Ministers, 7 scored lower marks than they did last year. “Could do better” would seem to be an understated summary of the public’s verdict on the Government institutions.
Voters were asked to rate each minister on a scale of 0 to 100, 0 being ‘very bad’ and 100 being ‘very good’.
As usual every figure is subject to a margin of error of 2.3%, which means that any change above 5 is outside the margin of error. Five of the 10 ministers show declines greater than that bar, while Naomi Long sits uncomfortably on it. John O’Dowd is the only one to record an improvement great than the margin of error.
Conor Murphy’s score in 2025 is compared with Liz Kimmins in 2026. This result should be treated with caution since it may partly or wholly reflect the public’s lower familiarity with her.
But a closer look at the figures reveals a different picture. While only a quarter of voters appear to think that the Executive is doing any good at all, the majority of nationalists, the majority of unionists, and the majority of others all believe that their ministers are doing a reasonable job.
The public’s views are clearly complicated when only a quarter see any benefit from the Executive, whilst at the same time a majority of all three designations believe that at least some members are doing a reasonable job.
Moreover, the figures seem to be measuring an increase in voter polarisation, rather than objective performance. As the atmosphere around the Executive table grows more fraught, the voters outside seem to rally more around the ministers of their own designation and are less willing to acknowledge that a minister from a different designation has anything to recommend them.
We will look at each of the designations in turn. It should be remembered that since Nationalists and Unionists are each only about 40% of the electorate, the sample size is smaller and therefore the margin of error for their opinions is closer to 4% each way. For Others, with an even smaller sample it rises further to 5%.
Let’s look first at the views of Nationalist voters.
They already gave most of their ministers a high score last year. They did not rate O’Dowd as highly as his colleagues, but this year have boosted him up. The average score they gave to SF ministers remains unchanged, but the gap between the highest and lowest score has closed.
In addition, they believe that the SDLP’s Matthew O’Toole is doing quite as good a job of Opposition to the Executive in which SF holds the most ministries as the SF ministers themselves.
Nationalists already held a low opinion of two DUP ministers; these have dropped even lower, and the substantially higher opinion they held of Emma Little-Pengelly has dropped considerably. In the past, it was notable that they saw a huge difference between her and her DUP colleagues; that gap has almost halved.
They have also virtually eliminated the gap between the two Alliance ministers.
The UUP’s Mike Nesbitt scores an increase of 4, this runs counter to the general pattern of consolidation within the designations. It may reflect a perception that he is more liberal than his successor, it may be a genuine recognition of the difficulty of his brief, or it may be a function of the margin of error. In any case it places him on the same level as Alliance ministers in the view of Nationalist voters.
The views of Unionist voters
Unionist voters have a similarly high view of DUP ministers as Nationalists have of SF’s. Indeed, it has grown slightly in the last year. Emma Little-Pengelly now appears to be slightly trailing her DUP colleagues, but we should be wary of drawing conclusions that may fall within the margin of error.
The SDLP’s Matthew O’Toole scores much higher with Unionist voters than SF ministers, and also twice as well as Alliance. The first is not surprising. The second is worthy of note, although it does not affect the SDLP’s vote total prospects.
The views of Other voters
Others also favour the ministers from their camp, but with slightly lower enthusiasm than Unionists and Nationalists show for their own. This might suggest that Other voters are suffering a slightly higher level of disillusionment with what Alliance ministers have been able to achieve, or had higher expectations in the first place.
Overall, their scores for the DUP and SF ministers have declined, while that for Mike Nesbitt has held up. DUP ministers receive by far the lowest level of appreciation from Others.
All in all, there is more to the popularity figures than the overall scores suggest.
