THREE-QUARTERS OF Irish adults believe that Cardinal Seán Brady should resign from office because of the sex abuse scandals in the Irish church, according to the latest Irish Times/Ipsos, MRBI poll.
When asked for their opinion on the issue, 76 per cent said the cardinal should resign, 15 per cent said he should not while 9 per cent had no opinion.
The strongest opposition to the cardinal was expressed in Dublin, where 83 per cent felt he should resign, while the most supportive region was Connacht/Ulster, where the figure fell to 67 per cent.
In the rest of Leinster 75 per cent of people said the cardinal should resign while the figure for Munster was 74 per cent.
In social class terms, the most hostile voters were in the skilled working-class C2 category, where 84 per cent wanted the cardinal to go, while the most supportive were farmers, followed by the best-off AB voters.
Across the age groups it was the 25 to 34-year-olds who were strongest in the view that the cardinal should go while the over-65s were most supportive.
However, that age group was still in favour of resignation by a margin of two to one.
In terms of party supporters Fianna Fáil voters were most supportive of the cardinal while Sinn Féin voters were the most hostile.
The poll was taken on Tuesday and Wednesday of last week among a representative sample of 1,000 voters aged 18 and over in face-to-face interviews at 100 sampling points in all 43 constituencies. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 per cent.
On the question of the Murphy report on the handling of child sexual abuse in the Dublin diocese, just 11 per cent of people thought the church had responded adequately to the report, while 83 per cent said that it had not, and 6 per cent had no opinion. This represents a worsening of the position of the church since last January when people were asked the same question.
At that stage 16 per cent thought the church had responded adequately and 74 per cent felt it had not.
In class terms there was much more support for the church among farmers, with 26 per cent of them saying it had responded adequately, falling to 11 per cent among the worst-off DE social category.
In terms of age groups, the strongest support was among the oldest over-65s category, with 21 per cent saying the response had been adequate, followed by the youngest 18 to 24 group, where 13 per cent agreed, but it was lowest of all among the 25 to 34 category with just 7 per cent saying the response had been adequate.
Fianna Fáil voters were most supportive of the church, followed by Fine Gael voters with Labour, Green and Sinn Féin voters much less inclined to say the response was adequate.