The Government tonight seems set to abandon plans for a June 7th referendum on judicial conduct after talks aimed at resolving difficulties over the time allotted to debate the legislation broke down.
The Minister for Justice, Mr John O'Donoghue, said afterwards that he and the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, would be considering the options now open to them.
Earlier, Mr Ahern accused opposition parties of gross hypocrisy in today’s reaction to the proposed referendum.
The proposed legislation was intended to introduce measures whereby allegations of misconduct by judges would be put to the Dáil and Seanad.
Following threats by Opposition parties to walk out of the Dáil earlier over what they claimed was insufficient time to consider a series of last minute amendments, Mr Ahern accused the opposition of playing political football and questioned whether they were serious about bringing the amendment forward.
"We had an all-party constitutional report giving very clear recommendations and the Minister’s proposals [on the referendum] were based on that," said Mr Ahern.
"It will be interesting to see if people are really interested in changing the judiciary or are they really playing political football with something else," he said.
The Opposition accused the Minister for Justice, Mr O’Donoghue, of "rushing" the proposed legislation.