Over one in five Irish voters believe conspiracy that government is 'replacing them with immigrants'

A new survey has revealed a significant number of voters believe conspiracy theories around immigration in Ireland.

An opinion poll carried out on behalf of An Coimisiún Toghcháin/the Electoral Commission found a fifth (22 per cent) of Irish voters believe politicians want more immigration to bring in “obedient voters” who will vote for them in future elections.

A similar amount of the 3,045 voters polled by research company Red C said they believe the “establishment” is replacing white Irish people with non-white migrants.

The poll also found that around 30 per cent of voters believe that “a small secret group of people is responsible for making all major decisions in world politics”, while a similar percentage (31per cent) believe that there are ongoing efforts to marginalise certain groups of people through political policies.

An Coimisiún Toghcháin published the latest data as part of Ireland’s new National Election and Democracy Study.

The report includes information on voter experience, political interest, and the sources of information used by voters.

Just over 3,000 voters were polled as part of the survey between 8 and 15 June, taking place around the time of the local and European elections.

The poll recorded data on voting intentions, left-right swings of party voters, as well as conspiracy theories and a myriad of other relevant election data.

22 per cent of voters were found to believe that experiments involving new drugs are “routinely carried out on the public without their knowledge or consent”.

A slightly higher proportion of voters (28per cent) believe that scientists manipulate, fabricate or suppress evidence to deceive the public while slightly less (21per cent) said they believed that viruses and/or diseases have been deliberately used to target and infect certain populations.

The survey also found that voters for Independent Ireland, Aontú and Sinn Féin were more likely to believe in most of the conspiracy theories that were asked about compared with voters for other parties.

However, the belief that the government keeps important secrets from the public drew broad agreement from voters of all the major parties.

The full report can be found here.

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