Package dependency problems

[Phil]

Thank you for reading my first posting to this list.

Any attempt to install any package is prevented because of a list of 
dependencies.

It has been suggested that I post the output of dpkg --configure -a and 
this is the result:

phil at Asus:~$ sudo dpkg --configure -a
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of libc6:i386:
  libc6:i386 depends on debconf (>= 0.5) | debconf-2.0; however:
   Package debconf is not installed.
   Package debconf-2.0 is not installed.
  libc6:i386 depends on libgcc1; however:
   Package libgcc1 is not installed.

dpkg: error processing libc6:i386 (--configure):
  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of multiarch-support:
  multiarch-support depends on libc6 (>= 2.13-5); however:
   Package libc6:i386 is not configured yet.

dpkg: error processing multiarch-support (--configure):
  dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
  libc6:i386
  multiarch-support

Is this a known problem?

-- 
Regards,
Phil