The Minister of State at the Department of Foreign Affairs, Ms Liz O'Donnell, has moved to defuse Ministers' anger over her interventions on immigration and asylum policy, praising the Minister for Justice's efforts in the area and expressing confidence the Government will deal effectively with the issue.
Government tensions will fall further after it emerged last night that a draft policy document on the issue, being prepared by the Progressive Democrats, is largely consistent with the actions the Government says it is considering to deal with the problem.
Ms O'Donnell, who 10 days ago said Government policy in the area was "a shambles" and repeated her criticisms on Tuesday night, said last night she intended "to work in solidarity" with her ministerial colleagues "on this and other areas of Government policy". However, Fine Gael justice spokesman Mr Jim Higgins last night accused Ms O'Donnell of a "craven" retraction of her "damning denunciation" of Government policy on the issue. She had completely undermined the Progressive Democrat position on the refugee issue and "has undermined her own credibility by voting confidence in the Minister who presides over the system that she denounced only a matter of days ago", he said.
Ms O'Donnell's speech involved a substantial softening of her language on the matter, while none of the significant number of Fianna Fail backbenchers who spoke repeated the criticisms of her voiced in the past week.
Ms O'Donnell said she had no wish to "cause insult to any person, not least the Minister for Justice, who I acknowledge is working in very difficult circumstances".
Ms O'Donnell's parliamentary party spent several hours yesterday working on a policy document to be completed before next Monday's meeting, chaired by the Taoiseach, of Ministers with responsibilities in the area, including Ms O'Donnell.
A draft of the document, details of which were reported on TV3 News last night, proposes a system allowing workers from outside the EU with particular skills to get visas to work in Ireland for specified periods.
Such a scheme is already being discussed by Mr O'Donoghue and the Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms Harney. They are to report to the Cabinet sub-committee on Monday, and details of the scheme are to be produced by officials of the two Departments by the end of February.
The draft also proposes the establishment of a specialist executive agency to handle all applications for asylum.
It proposes that the Refugee Agency, under the remit of the Department of Foreign Affairs, be given a greater role in dealing with individual refugees, rather than being confined to dealing with organised groups of "programme" refugees from countries such as Bosnia and Vietnam.
The Government won, as expected, the confidence motion in Mr O'Donoghue last night after several Cabinet Ministers and a considerable number of Fianna Fail backbenchers spoke in his support.
The four Independents who traditionally support the Government - Mr Harry Blaney, Ms Mildred Fox, Mr Tom Gildea and Mr Jackie Healy-Rae - voted against the Opposition motion.
The chairman of the Fianna Fail parliamentary party, Dr Rory O'Hanlon, said he had "advised" a meeting of the parliamentary party yesterday that members should consult the party's press office in future before making contentious comments.