The Irish are strongly attached to STV

The Irish have twice rejected proposals by the political parties there to change from STV. See http://aceproject.org/ace-en/topics/es/esy/esy_ie for details of the 1959 and 1968 referendums.

More recently, in 2002, Ireland had an All-Party Constitutional Review Committee review their electoral system. They concluded, among other things, that STV there has "manifest and well-recognized virtues, including proportionality, responsiveness to public choice, and continuity, which together have garnered for it substantial and enduring popular support." (http://www.constitution.ie/reports/7th-Report-Parliament.pdf, page 27). Over 75% of the politicians there ranked STV as their #1 choice for an electoral system (about 20% wanted either MMP or a party list system, and only 1% wanted to switch to First Past the Post).

Speaking of the proposed Mixed Member Proportional option they considered, the committee had the following to say: "significant elements of power and choice are removed from the voters in constituencies, and transferred to party leaders and managers, whose determination of the ordering of lists would normally be crucial. ... it seems highly unlikely that a change of this nature, which would be seen as advantaging parties and disadvantaging the individual voter, would be received well by the public" (p28).

The committee concludes that "no change [to STV] is necessary or desirable", arguing that "Finally, and decisively, there is no evidence of serious or widespread public discontent with the existing system: on the contrary, there is in our view a strong and enduring attachment to it. The fundamental and insurmountable argument against change is that the current Irish electoral system provides the greatest degree of voter choice of any available option. A switch to any other system would reduce the power of the individual voter" (p29).