Irish voters want leader to bow out as recovery falters

MOST Irish voters want their prime minister Brian Cowen to step down before the next general election, a poll reveals.It came as new data suggest Ireland's brief economic upturn was further weakening.

• Members of Brian Cowen's own party have called for him to step down

Already the most unpopular Irish leader in modern history, Mr Cowen's currency has been further devalued by revelations this week that taxpayers will have to foot a banking clean-up bill of up to €50 billion (43bn) following reckless lending during the "Celtic Tiger" years.

Voters have long lost faith in Mr Cowen and the Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll yesterday showed 61 per cent think he should resign before the next election, due in 2012 but likely to be held before then.

The poll showed 29 per cent thought he should stay put and 10 per cent had no opinion.

Mr Cowen may only have a few months left to cede to their demands with his wafer-thin majority in parliament almost certain to be wiped out once by-elections are held to fill three lower-house seats in the first four months of next year.

Already, Fianna Fail's coalition government with the environmentalist Green Party requires support from independent MPs to survive.

If Mr Cowen were to stand down as leader of Fianna Fail and prime minister, 39 per cent of those polled would like to see right-hand man Brian Lenihan take over as Taoiseach with foreign minister Micheal Martin a distant third, backed by 18 per cent of voters.

Mr Lenihan is credited as a much stronger media performer than Mr Cowen with a more obvious hands-on command of the financial crisis, but Mr Lenihan also has been battling cancer for the past year.

Some from Mr Cowen's own party have also called for him to step down, particularly after he embarrassed them last month by conducting a slurred radio interview the morning after partying late with colleagues.

Ireland officially exited two years of recession in the first quarter of this year before shrinking again in the following three months.

The NCB Purchasing Managers' Index released yesterday, which measures the Irish manufacturing sector, fell sharply to 48.4 from 51.1 in August, dipping below the 50 mark separating growth from contraction for the first time since February.

Mr Cowen must unveil a four-year budget plan next month and push through tougher cuts in 2011 than the €3bn (2.6bn) of adjustments originally planned, to reassure investors Ireland will not need external assistance to see it through its crisis.

Only a growing economy will generate the tax revenues Ireland needs, alongside spending cuts and tax hikes, to reduce a debt pile that the bank bailout will swell to 99 per cent of gross domoestic product (GDP) this year, from 25 per cent prior to the crisis.Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, yesterday said he did not expect Ireland to tap the ?€750bn (65bn) rescue fund for indebted eurozone countries, calming market fears.

"The Irish government has already taken a series of solid measures on the fiscal side and in the banking sector," he was quoted as telling the German business daily Handelsblatt.