A cabinet meeting scheduled for this afternoon has been delayed indefinitely because of difficulties between the coalition partners over the Sheedy affair. The Tánaiste, Mary Harney, has been meeting senior collegues in the Progressive Democrats this evening to discuss the row. It is unclear whether Mr Ahern has discussed the matter with the Tánaiste - they were due to have had talks before the cabinet meeting.
Speaking in Donegal this morning, Mary Harney, told RTE News it had been her clear understanding that the Taoiseach was going to put the fact that he had made representations on behalf of jailed architect Philip Sheedy on the Dáil record. She told RTE News that she cannot understand why this did not happen. But she said there was nothing wrong with making the representation.
RTE News put it to Ms Harney that this must put pressure on the coalition. Ms Harney said she did not make any demands of the Taoiseach, but she said that the way the matter had came into the public domain was not satisfactory. She said "We can't have situations like this emerging, this could have been avoided, this should have been avoided. It wasn't and I regret this very much." She said the last few days had not been good for the government. The Tánaiste confirmed that she would be discussing the matter with the Taoiseach this afternoon, but she would not indicate what she would say to him.
A government spokesman said today that Mr Ahern would take the opportunity of the normal pre-Cabinet meeting with the Tánaiste to discuss the affair. The spokesman added that the Taoiseach will also deal with the matter in the Dáil tomorrow by way of a statement in order to clear up the issue “once and for all”.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party Leader, Ruairí Quinn, has said the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste are now giving conflicting accounts of any agreement they had last week in relation to the Taoiseach's role in the Sheedy affair. In a statement, he said the Taoiseach is increasingly showing signs of a leader who “has his finger on the self-destruct button”. Mr Quinn said that Mr Ahern's failure to put his own involvement in this affair on the record is inexplicable and has given rise to understandable suspicion about his motives. He added that the Tánaiste, too, has put her own credibility on the line. He said that if the Taoiseach is not prepared to accede to a simple and reasonable request made by her, then there is not much to be said for this partnership government.
The Fine Gael leader, John Bruton has accused the Taoiseach of systematically concealing the fact that he had made representations on Behalf of Mr Sheedy. He said it was clear that Mr Ahern did not want the information to come out.
