Poll: Ireland wants Prime Minister Cowen to resign over government’s handling of debt crisis

Poll: Most Irish want premier Cowen to quit now

DUBLIN — A national poll suggests that most Irish people want Prime Minister Brian Cowen to quit now, not wait for an election.

The poll in Friday’s Irish Times newspaper says 61 percent want him out, and just 29 percent want him to stay. It finds that 57 percent also want a national election now, while 37 percent want Ireland’s government to survive its five-year term through mid-2012.

The survey of 1,000 people rates Finance Minister Brian Lenihan as favorite to replace Cowen as leader of the government and of the long-ruling Fianna Fail party. The poll has an error margin of 3 percentage points.

Cowen rose to power in 2008 in the dying days of Ireland’s Celtic Tiger boom. Recession, surging unemployment, record deficits and mammoth bank bailouts have followed.