If the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, can give the Dáil a credible and convincing account of how he came to accept payments from businessmen while he was minister for finance, the Progressive Democrats would be prepared to continue in Government under his leadership, the Tánaiste, Michael McDowell, indicated last night.
"What I am saying is that a person in his position has to be accountable in the right way to Dáil Éireann. Decent standards have to be observed and people have to be accountable. I believe and hope that he will account, warts and all, to the Dáil on Tuesday. I have the feeling that we have to act proportionately on this," Mr McDowell told The Irish Times last night.
"I strongly believe that Bertie Ahern is an honest, decent man and I have never seen any evidence of corruption. As far as I am concerned all of these things fall short of what we could consider acceptable but what the Irish people have to decide is whether they want the Government to break up and a person who achieved huge things for Ireland to bow out on this," he said.
The Tánaiste said Mr Ahern had been one of Ireland's most successful taoisigh and he wanted to be reasonable and proportionate while adhering to reasonable standards. "There has to be accountability. There is nothing wrong with someone saying I should have acted differently. There is nothing corrupt in that. I have an abhorrence of heads on plates and that also goes for delivering my own head on a plate."
He said everybody in politics had a duty to look at where things will be at in a few months' time and not allow themselves to be stampeded by events which have a habit of taking on a momentum of their own.
"Nobody is suggesting that Bertie Ahern is a corrupt man who has not done a good job. What I said yesterday [ Thursday] was that there had to be accountability. What the public want is accountability. Should we bring about a decapitation? Let's look at Northern Ireland and all the other serious issues. When all those things are put into the balance is this an issue on which the Government should collapse or where there should be a political execution? The huge problem is that we may end up with a disproportionate response," he said.
Meanwhile, Mr Ahern confirmed last night that he attended a number of Manchester United matches in 1993 and 1994 as the guest of developers then lobbying to build a controversial casino and conference centre in the Phoenix Park.
Senior Fianna Fáil Ministers yesterday rallied to the Taoiseach's defence. The Minister for Finance, Brian Cowen, appeared twice on RTÉ to defend Mr Ahern, and suggested that the Manchester money had been collected because of his personal circumstances at the time.
Asked three times during an RTÉ television interview yesterday whether it was right of Mr Ahern to have taken the money, Mr Cowen said: "He was not incorrect in taking it on the basis on which it was given - solidarity from people at a time when it was a difficult personal period for him. That was the situation. People understand it."
Mr Cowen said there were no tax or ethics issues relating to the payments and that the Taoiseach would deal with it in full during a debate in the Dáil next Tuesday.
"The Taoiseach has not in any way abused public office. The Taoiseach has not enriched himself as a result of his engagement in politics." However, Mr Cowen acknowledged that taking money in such circumstances would be inappropriate now.
"The Taoiseach has made it clear, what the circumstances and the context were," he said. "And if he had it all over again, would it happen? I'm sure it wouldn't and certainly in the context of the guidelines that are available at the moment."
Asked about how the Taoiseach could claim that he was in a private role at the dinner, when he spoke about economic issues affecting Ireland, Mr Cowen described this as "semantics and the pedantic view that's taken of all of these things in relation to relatively unimportant issues".