Creating database in new installation results in "server error"

I'm installing OpenERP version 7.0-20130219-002614-1 (the deb package) on Debian Squeeze. The install goes OK (after some some failed installs because of old Python versions hanging around), but when I try to create the initial database, I get the following message:

OpenERP Server Error

Client Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/openerp/addons/web/http.py", line 195, in dispatch
    response["result"] = method(self, **self.params)
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/openerp/addons/web/controllers/main.py", line 719, in create
    params['create_admin_pwd'])
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/openerp/addons/web/session.py", line 31, in proxy_method
    result = self.session.send(self.service_name, method, *args)
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/openerp/addons/web/session.py", line 104, in send
    raise xmlrpclib.Fault(openerp.tools.ustr(e), formatted_info)

Server Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/openerp/addons/web/session.py", line 90, in send
    return openerp.netsvc.dispatch_rpc(service_name, method, args)
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/openerp/netsvc.py", line 295, in dispatch_rpc
    result = ExportService.getService(service_name).dispatch(method, params)
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/openerp/service/web_services.py", line 122, in dispatch
    return fn(*params)
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/openerp/service/web_services.py", line 167, in exp_create_database
    self._create_empty_database(db_name)
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/openerp/service/web_services.py", line 136, in _create_empty_database
    cr.execute("""CREATE DATABASE "%s" ENCODING 'unicode' TEMPLATE "%s" """ % (name, chosen_template))
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/openerp/sql_db.py", line 162, in wrapper
    return f(self, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/pymodules/python2.6/openerp/sql_db.py", line 227, in execute
    res = self._obj.execute(query, params)
DataError: encoding UTF8 does not match locale en_IE@euro
DETAIL:  The chosen LC_CTYPE setting requires encoding LATIN9.

Can anybody shed some light on why this might be happening? Thanks very much.