Sinn Féin has defended using a fake company to conduct local polling of voters.
The party told members to pretend to be from a made up polling organisation when carrying out research ahead of elections.
Sinn Féin members were instructed to pose as pollsters from a fake polling company called the IMRA so they could covertly survey voters.
https://t.co/iaY2RWvliS pic.twitter.com/NYnfR3ycq5— Philip Ryan (@Philip_Ryan) June 9, 2021
Irish Market Research Agency Doesn't Exist
Sinn Féin members were told to say they were from the Irish Market Research Agency when carrying out door-to-door polling of voter intentions in a policy document from headquarters.
They carried fake ID badges claiming to be from the self-described independent company, which in fact doesn't exist.
Fianna Fáil TD Marc MacSharry has called on gardaí to investigate:
"Quite frankly, anyone using fake ID to prescribe a dishonest outcome from the people they're engaging with, the public, is not honest."
"It amounts to basic subversion, I'd be amazed if the Gardaí didn't have a comment to make."
Sinn Féin TD Eoin O'Broin has denied the practice was deception:
"When we started doing this in 2010 we would've been a very small party with limited resources."
"So you're trying to compete with the bigger party who were able to pay polling companies."
Sinn Féin says the document outlining this practice is now years old, and it mostly uses professional polling companies now.
