The Labour Party has called for the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue, to resign, saying his position was now "completely untenable".
The party's leader, Mr Ruairí Quinn, claimed the Minister's initial statement about the Naughton rape case controversy, was "grossly and deliberately incomplete and seriously misleading".
His comments came as the Fine Gael leader, Mr Michael Noonan, demanded that the Taoiseach "must take responsibility for the actions of his Minister". He said the revelations of the extensive correspondence confirmed his belief of an "appalling vista" of Ministers attempting to influence a judge in exercising his duties.
Mr Quinn said Mr O'Donoghue had sought to give effect to the impression that the phone call to the judge was done in complete innocence. The Minister had claimed that when the courts division of the Department of Justice phoned Judge O'Sullivan it did not know the true nature of Bobby Molloy's interest in this case. It has now been revealed that the same section "had been dealing with the correspondence from Minister Molloy as far back as March of the previous year".
The Minister sought to create the impression that the correspondence was handled by his office and only the phone call was dealt with by the courts division, when it dealt with both.
"This is no oversight - it is a deliberate deception. The release of today's additional correspondence merely highlights that fact."
Mr Noonan said the Taoiseach had to answer five questions.
"Does he still stand over his initial statement to the effect that there was no case to answer in relation to this issue? Will he interview his Minister for Justice to ascertain whether any other Ministers made any representations in relation to this case? Did Minister Molloy ever speak to the Minister for Justice about this case and, if so, what was the outcome? Is the Taoiseach satisfied that no further documentation exists in either the Department of Justice or in the office of former Minister Molloy which would shed further light on this scandal, and most importantly will the Taoiseach apologise to the victim of these appalling crimes of rape and sexual abuse for actions which appear to have more consideration for the perpetrator than for the innocent victim?"
Mr Quinn also repeated demands for an independent investigation which he described as now "more urgent than ever". He said a refusal by the Taoiseach and Tánaiste to set up an investigation could only mean they "do not want the truth to emerge".
However, Labour leader Mr Quinn said it was clear "the relevant information has been withheld by the Department of Justice". There were extensive contacts between the two Ministers "which makes it all the more difficult to accept the Department's claim that the official who attempted to obtain Mr Justice O'Sullivan's home number for Mr Molloy did not know what it was wanted for".
An investigation should be based on the lines of the one into the Judge Dominic Lynch case, which reported in little more than a week, he said. The Lynch case was an investigation into the failure by the Department of Justice to delist Judge Dominic Lynch from the Special Criminal Court.
Fine Gael's Justice spokesman, Mr Alan Shatter, said the Minister had stated he had no knowledge of the case. "In the context of the amount of correspondence involved this is no longer credible."
Green party leader Mr Trevor Sargent said it was important to set up an independent appointments commission for judges. The tradition of political appointments to the judiciary has been "too cosy" as this case demonstrated.
