The Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, has claimed it will not matter that much whether Bertie Ahern or Enda Kenny is Taoiseach after the next election.
Mr McDowell, who is President of the Progressive Democrats, told a party meeting in Waterford today that it would be the junior coalition party that defines the direction of the Government.
In what party sources say is a fundamental statement of the PD position ahead of next year's election, Mr McDowell described the focus on who would be the next Taoiseach as overblown.
He maintained that history has shown that, while the larger party leads in a coalition, the junior party provides the direction.
He instanced examples like the coalition under Garret FitzGerald, when he claimed Labour blocked necessary cuts in public spending and insisted on a residential property tax.
He contrasted its record to that of the present Government where he suggested PD influence had led to widespread tax cuts.
Minister McDowell claimed that the real choice facing the Irish electorate was not between Mr Ahern and Mr Kenny, but between what he called 'the doctrinaire leftists' of Labour, Sinn Féin and the Greens on the one hand, and the economically liberal PDs on the other.
