Prominent businessman Xavier McAuliffe has suggested that the Taoiseach lacks "balls" following Mr Ahern's 11th hour decision to cancel his planned opening of Mr McAuliffe's new luxury hotel in Kilkenny because of a planning dispute.
Mr McAuliffe said yesterday he was "very upset" at the Taoiseach's "appalling" decision to pull out of tomorrow's event because of ongoing court action over walls and flagpoles at the entrance to the grounds of the newly-built Lyrath Estate Hotel, which were erected without planning permission.
He said some 400 people had already been invited to tomorrow's official opening at noon, which was to be followed by a lunch at the hotel at which the Taoiseach would have been guest of honour.
Mr Ahern will keep other engagements planned for the Carlow-Kilkenny constituency tomorrow, while Mr McAuliffe says the hotel opening will go ahead without the Taoiseach.
A Government spokeswoman said yesterday that the Taoiseach would not now perform the official opening. "Our offices learned this morning of a planning issue which is before the District Court and it would be inappropriate for the Taoiseach to attend while the matter remains unresolved," she said.
In a case reported in this newspaper and in local media in Kilkenny, the District Court last month ordered the demolition of walls and flagpoles erected at the entrance to the hotel grounds which had been built without planning permission.
Saying "this is Kilkenny, not Dallas", Judge William Harnett fined the hotel €1,000 and imposed a deadline of July 1st for the offending works to be removed. Mr McAuliffe said yesterday that he believed the planners had no objection to the structure. However, his architect had wrongly told the builders to proceed with the structure before the planning process had been completed.
He (Mr McAuliffe) had believed that he had the necessary planning permission, but pleaded guilty to the offence when he discovered what happened. He has appealed the District Court order to demolish the walls to the Circuit Court.
Reacting to Mr Ahern's decision, Mr McAuliffe told The Irish Times yesterday: "I think he is doing the wrong thing. He hasn't much balls if he is doing this over two walls."
He said there were 150 people working at the hotel getting wages of some €100,000 per week. He employed many others at his other hotels, while his Spectra photographic business employed some 600 people and had been operating for the past 30 years.
"It is a very bad reflection in the Taoiseach, or his office or whoever made the decision to do something like this. What are we to do two days before the event?" Government sources said yesterday that they knew the developer was now "actively seeking resolution of the outstanding planning issues with the planning authority and the Taoiseach will visit at a future date once these issues are resolved".
The hotel has already removed two other structures - a flashing neon sign and an advertising hoarding - also erected without permission. But two unauthorised advertising structures, four uplighters and six flagpoles at the hotel's entrance, remain in place.
Mr McAuliffe said the issue concerned "two walls" and asked: "What's the big deal?"