From the start of the day it was clear there would be no disagreement voiced on the central point: A member of the Dail who had voted to set up the Flood tribunal was now refusing to co-operate with it. All other members of the Dail must condemn this.

But despite all-party agreement, the Dail's political parties spent the day arguing bitterly over how to make the point. Ultimately, it took close to 10 hours to produce an agreed statement. The Government spent the day resisting Opposition demands for the statement to refer explicitly to Liam Lawlor.

The Government said this was due to caution inspired by legal advice that nothing should be done to prejudice the tribunal's attempt through the courts to force Mr Lawlor to co-operate. Opposition cynics suggested privately - and without evidence - that the Government was afraid to upset Mr Lawlor too much. He could resign and cause a messy by-election or, even worse, he could have some dirt on senior figures that he might just choose to spread around, they suggested.

Ultimately, the body of the statement did not refer to Mr Lawlor. However, in the introduction to it, the party leaders said it was being issued "because of our concern about the position taken by Deputy Liam Lawlor in regard to the Flood tribunal".

It appeared close to nonsensical that it took almost 10 hours to come up with this formulation. The day of political manoeuvring took the gloss off the all-party desire to express disapproval of Mr Lawlor's stance.

In the Dail yesterday morning, Mr Ahern stated the cross-party view with clarity: "Every citizen and every member of the Oireachtas has a legal, moral and democratic duty to co-operate with the tribunal, not to obstruct it and to comply with its lawful orders. I would expect any citizen and member of the Oireachtas who disputes the validity or legality of any tribunal order to make his or her case to the tribunal and, if necessary, to the courts."

And so said all of them. But the sense of unanimity was dented by the subsequent acrimony - particularly from the Labour Party - over how exactly the members of the Dail would make this point. The Fine Gael leader, Mr Bruton, first suggested all party leaders would sign up to a joint statement containing Mr Ahern's words. However, the Labour leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, said he wanted these words to be approved by the Dail as a motion without debate, rather than be issued as a joint statement.

It seemed to be an interesting difference over correct political etiquette, but it turned into a heated row in the Dail chamber. The Dail's Order of Business sees frequent competition between the main Opposition leaders to grab the lion's share of subsequent media coverage.

Yesterday appeared to be no exception, although Labour figures insisted later the row was over substance, not just image. A motion approved by the Dail would have considerably more moral authority than one signed by party leaders, they said.

Throughout the exchanges nobody voiced any support for the beleaguered Dublin West deputy, although Mr Lawlor himself said he would welcome a Dail debate. However, in the quietest corners of Leinster House, there was some murmured satisfaction among Fianna Fail backbenchers that at least someone was making a public gesture of contempt for the Flood tribunal, which is particularly reviled within the party.

There is broad acceptance in the party that Mr Lawlor should never again be a Fianna Fail public representative. But yesterday, there was some quiet admiration for the deputy's toughness as he appears to edge ever closer to the political firing squad, defiant to the last.