Talks are continuing tonight between senior Department of Local Government officials and Attorney General Rossa Fanning over whether Jim Gavin can be officially removed from the presidential ballot or not.
Under long-standing rules, a presidential candidate cannot be removed from a ballot paper if he or she has withdrawn from the race after the presidential nomination process closes.
For this year's contest, that process closed at noon on Wednesday 24 September.
This means that it is highly likely that despite withdrawing from campaigning, Mr Gavin's name will still appear on the presidential ballot paper when votes are cast on Friday 24 October.
This will also mean that Mr Gavin will still be treated in the same way as Independent candidate Catherine Connolly and Fine Gael candidate Heather Humphreys in that people will be able to vote for him and that these votes would be counted in the same way as others.
Sources have stressed it is extremely unlikely this process will be ignored or contradicted.
However, RTÉ News understands that the Department of Housing's presidential returning officer Barry Ryan met with Attorney General Rossa Fanning this afternoon to finalise a decision on whether Mr Gavin will remain on the ballot or not.
These discussions are believed to have involved a number of potential legal arguments surrounding this process, including whether the rarely used section 164 of the 1992 Electoral Act could be used to remove Mr Gavin's name from the ballot.
That section states that an "adaptation or modification where there is emergency or special difficulty" can take place in relation to a ballot in extremely rare circumstances.
However, sources have noted that if such a rare step is taken it would potentially cause separate problems in relation to the first postal ballots which have already been sent out to students studying away from home; people working abroad on voting day; and some people with disabilities.
A decision is expected to be made on the issue tonight.
