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Irish PM's party slumps to third place in opinion poll

Ireland's Prime Minister Enda Kenny talks to the media as he arrives at an informal summit of European Union leaders in Brussels May 27, 2014. REUTERS/Laurent Dubrule

By Padraic Halpin

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny's Fine Gael party slumped into third place behind Sinn Fein in an opinion poll on Thursday as its popularity collapsed to an 11-year low amid a surge in support for independents.

Kenny's party emerged from an international bailout Ireland completed a year ago as the most popular party but has had a wretched year, with recent mass protests against new water charges exposing frustration over an uneven economic recovery.

Only 19 percent of voters said they favoured the centre-right party, down 6 percentage points since October. Sinn Fein became the most popular party despite also falling two points since the last poll, to 22 percent.

The "Independents and others" group rose a stunning nine points to 32 percent, an all-time high in the Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll, raising the prospect of a rare deadlock in Ireland if repeated at parliamentary elections due in early 2016.

"Remarkably, no one party achieves more than 22 percent in the poll, another first in more than 30 years of polling," Ipsos MRBI managing director Damian Loscher said. "Under these conditions it would be next to impossible to form a stable government."

The poll showed Kenny's junior coalition partners Labour falling three points to 6 percent.

Such an outcome would mean it would be unable to win a single seat at the next election, according to Adrian Kavanagh, a politics lecturer at National University Ireland Maynooth who conducts constituency level analysis on each opinion poll.

Fine Gael would win just 34 seats, Kavanagh said, less than half the number it secured at the 2011 election when it and Labour swept to power with a record combined 113 seats in the 166-seat chamber.

Kenny's personal rating also tumbled, down seven points to 19 percent, making him the least popular party leader and prompting Sinn Fein to say it would raise a no confidence motion in the Prime Minister next week to coincide with a third day of protest against the water charges.

Kenny should have little trouble winning the vote with such a large majority but while one MP said there was no way he could be blamed for the slump when asked if there might be a challenge to his leadership, another was not so sure.

"I couldn't say I know the answer to that question. The strategists, senior members of the party and the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) need to look seriously at the poll numbers and take the appropriate action," Sean Conlan told Newstalk radio.

(Editing by Catherine Evans; editing by Ralph Boulton)