The Taoiseach has placed himself, Mr Ray Burke, and the entire Government in the most invidious position imaginable with yesterday's announcement that a new judicial tribunal will investigate the planning history of 726 acres of land in north Dublin from 1989. The manner of the announcement, in an RTE interview at the weekend and before the terms of reference have been put to tomorrow's Cabinet meeting, is the firmest evidence yet of the pressure mounting within the Government about the constant drip of allegations and revelations about, arguably, Mr Ahern's most important Minister.
When Mr Ahern and the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, hinted on Friday night that it might be necessary to refer the contents of the planning "procurement" letter between two builders to a separate inquiry, the Government had no intention of making the formal announcement before tomorrow's return of the Dail.
But new allegations in yesterday's Sunday Business Post obviously changed that.
Mr Burke, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and co-chairman of the most historic Northern Ireland talks since the State's foundation, will be required to give evidence to the tribunal about the receipt of a £30,000 political donation during the 1989 election campaign.
The unsolicited £30,000 in hard cash in two brown envelopes was handed over to him at a meeting in his home, attended by the two builders, Mr Michael Bailey and Mr James Gogarty, three days after they had exchanged the letter.
Mr Ahern believes it will be possible for Mr Burke to seek to clear his name at a short-running tribunal while, at the same time, leading the Government's team at the most important Anglo-Irish negotiations for 75 years.
But, conscious of the impossible position in which Mr Burke finds himself, Mr Ahern went on to anticipate, and refute, any suggestion that his Minister should be asked to step aside.
The Taoiseach, who admitted on RTE yesterday that he kept his ear close to the ground on most matters, must know that Mr Burke is in an untenable position representing Government interests in Belfast at this time.
Yet Government sources were at pains to point out last night that Mr Albert Reynolds and Mr Des O'Malley were serving Ministers when they gave evidence to the beef tribunal and they were not required to stand aside.
On the face of it, that's true. But at the outset, Mr Reynolds and Mr O'Malley were not central to the subject of the beef tribunal. Mr Ahern may, and does, protest that "this inquiry is not about" Mr Burke. He is the focus of the new tribunal, however, and the controversy surrounding him provided the political initiative for it.
One must also be forgiven for wondering if Mr Ahern harboured reservations about Mr Burke on his Cabinet appointment and whether the ham-fisted attempt to give Mr David Andrews half of the Foreign Affairs job was designed to cover all eventualities.
There is no constitutional mechanism which would permit Mr Burke to "step aside" from his responsibilities as Minister for Foreign Affairs for a period. He would have to resign, or alternatively, be re-shuffled to a different Ministry if he found it impossible to vindicate his good name at a tribunal while co-chairing the Northern negotiations.
Meanwhile, inconsistencies have emerged in Mr Burke's story since he made his defiant and emotional statement to the Dail on September 10th, outlining the circumstances in which he was presented with an unsolicited donation of £30,000 in 1989.
The central thrust of Mr Burke's position, accepted and repeated by the Taoiseach, is that he was not a member of Dublin County Council in 1989. He ceased to be a member in 1987. He had no role in 1989.
But, in defending himself in the Dail on September 10th, Mr Burke went on to outline how he had "actively campaigned against the rezoning proposals" being made in the County Dublin Development Plan 1991-1993.
He said he sought a reconsideration of them by the council's Fianna Fail group. He wrote to the chairperson of that group, Ms Betty Coffey, on August 4th, 1993. He also led a delegation of Fianna Fail cumann members to meet the then Minister for the Environment, Mr Michael Smith, in November 1993.
He did all of that lobbying, at different political levels, at a time when he had "no role".
The second difficulty for Mr Burke, at this point, is that the main witness to his version of events at the meeting is Mr Michael Bailey of Bovale Ltd.
He received a written statement from Mr Bailey and read it into the record of the Dail.
It is now known that that same Mr Bailey wrote the planning "procurement" letter, which will be the starting point for the new tribunal.
The most serious problem for Mr Burke is presented in the allegation in yesterday's Sunday Business Post that he received a detailed schedule of land folio numbers at the 1989 meeting in his home.
Mr Burke's political spokesman said last night that he had not spoken to the Minister yesterday.
He referred to Mr Bailey's letter which Mr Burke had read into the Dail record stating that "there was no discussion of any favours at the meeting".
If this latest allegation is true, Mr Burke has misled the Taoiseach and the Dail.