A joint survey by the Irish Times and Irish Daily Star newspapers has discovered that 98% of 1000 Irish people questioned have already abandoned their New Year’s resolutions, just one week into 2011.

This is the lowest rate of successful resolutions recorded since the Great Willpower Famine of 1988, caused by a fall in chocolate prices at the same time as gym membership rates soared.

“It’s fascinating stuff,” said Times statistics correspondent Fionn O’Huclebearai. “The survey shows that Irish people have absolutely no willpower whatsoever, and will give in to temptation almost immediately. Now where did I leave that heroin cream sponge cake?”

The most common resolution broken was ‘Give up the drink’, which for a majority was broken within the first five minutes of the New Year.

“I probably should have waited until I wasn’t already drunk at a party in fairness,” said one respondent.

Other popular resolutions quickly broken included:
Not putting too much milk in your cereal so that it’s just a bowl of milk at the end
Only touching yourself on days beginning with the letter T
Not caring what Roy Keane does
Calling off the hit on Brendan O’Connor
Immediately changing the channel when a Reality TV show comes on
Writing all emails without any vowels and pretending not to understand when people ask why
Telling your boss exactly what you think of them

The survey also asked some supplementary questions. 70% answered yes to the suggestion ‘Enda Kenny is a nice enough fella but I’d rather have him minding the corner flags than the Government’ while 80% responded positively to the statement ‘Bewbs are kewl.’

These findings will be published in either the Star or Times later in the week. Your guess is as good as ours.