Irish PM under pressure as coalition fails

DUBLIN - Ireland's deeply unpopular prime minister suffered another blow yesterday as the small but pivotal Green Party withdrew from his coalition government, forcing a national election next month rather than in March and raising pressure on him to quit.

Brian Cowen is widely blamed for Ireland's stunning slide to the brink of bankruptcy. His Fianna Fail party, which has won the most seats in parliament in every election since 1932, is expected this time to suffer a crushing defeat.

The Greens hold just six seats, but losing them cost the ruling coalition its parliamentary majority. Their withdrawal means Cowen will be forced to dissolve parliament and call an election within days, nullifying the March 11 election date he had announced last week. Analysts said a new election date, most likely in the second half of February, would be pinpointed this week.

Cowen ruled out resigning as prime minister before the passage of the 2011 Finance Bill, a deficit-fighting measure that will raise income taxes as part of Ireland's international bailout.

"It's important that we get the Finance Bill through, and we need a government to do that," said Cowen, who did resign Saturday as leader of Fianna Fail.

Ireland's government has been heading for collapse since November, when Cowen was forced to negotiate a 67.5-billion euro ($91-billion) loan agreement with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund to prevent bankruptcy.

The collapse reflects a wider debt crisis in Europe: Greece required a bailout before Ireland did, many analysts predict Portugal will be next, and nations across the continent are imposing painful cuts to claw back deficits.

The Greens and opposition parties had grown frustrated at Cowen's slow rollout of the Finance Bill, which will aggressively raise income taxes to combat Ireland's Europe-leading deficit.