MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Most Irish believe the worst is yet to come; 50 billion Euros to clean bank mess

Prime Minister Brian Cowen holds a job not many aspire

Most Irish people think the worst is yet to come for their economy and only a minority thinks a change of government could improve the situation, a poll showed.

Voters' scepticism about opposition parties' economic prowess is a small crumb of comfort for Prime Minister Brian Cowen, the most unpopular leader in modern Irish history, as he prepares to introduce years of savage budget cuts.

The Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll showed 70% of people think the worst is yet to come for Ireland, which has been transformed from the EU once fastest-growing economy to a problem child by a disastrous property bubble, a banking crisis and a mountain of public debt.

The survey was carried out two days before Cowen revealed the total cost of cleaning up years of reckless lending by the country's banks could top 50 billion Euros and meant years of austerity measures.

Cowen's parliamentary majority is on a knife edge but most analysts think the government will hold on until three by-elections are held in the first quarter of next year. If Cowen's party loses all three, as expected, a general election is likely.

Some 45% of respondents in the Irish Times poll said a new government would have no impact on the economic situation, 39% said a new administration would improve things and 6% said it would make things worse. Finally 10% said they did not know.

A majority, 54%, said the government should stick to a target of 3 billion Euros of new cuts in the 2011 budget while 26% said more was needed.

Cowen has already said the government will have to go deeper than 3 billion Euros in next year's fiscal plan to help tackle the worst budget deficit in the EU, which stands at 32% of GDP.