The Tanaiste and Progressive Democrats leader allowed the party to be sucked into Fianna Fail's "pervasive culture" and did not consult it in relation to a number of contentious decisions, according to Senator Helen Keogh.
Ms Keogh, who spent yesterday in Tipperary South canvassing for her new party's by-election candidate, Mr Tom Hayes, said her decision to defect to Fine Gael this week followed "death by a thousand cuts".
She had found it "harder and harder to take" the party's loss of identity which, she said, was happening in relation to a series of issues in recent months.
She conceded that some were "very small things" and that the deterioration of her personal relationship with Ms Harney was a factor. However, she said the acquiescence of Ms Harney in the appointment of Mr Hugh O'Flaherty to the European Investment Bank was the most serious issue. "I asked myself why are we bothering after that," she said. It emerged separately yesterday that there was deep dissatisfaction expressed within the PDs in recent months over the Government decision to proceed with the national stadium, a pet project of the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern.
At Progressive Democrat general council meetings in March and again last weekend, many speakers maintained the project was a waste of money and that the funds should be spent on alleviating poverty or in other areas.
The general council accepted last week the view of Ms Harney that the stadium project was a "done deal" at Government, and that to oppose it now would cause serious damage to relationships at Cabinet. However, there was annoyance among some sections of the membership that the idea was not opposed at that level.
Ms Keogh said yesterday that this issue had aroused internal controversy. "Issues were coming up in public regularly which had not been discussed within the party," she said.
She maintained that "nobody is surprised" at Fine Gael and Mr John Bruton's poor showing in yesterday's Irish Times/MRBI opinion poll. "Votes are going all over the place and that shows a disillusionment with politicians," she maintained. Fine Gael may get a further boost shortly with the likely defection of a number of Progressive Democrat activists in the Dun Laoghaire constituency to join Ms Keogh.