As the PDs seek to present a united front again, Liam Reid and Mark Brennock report on the events leading to this week's bitter row involving the party's two leading lights.
This week's damaging dispute within the PDs over the party leadership followed a separate heated row at last week's PD parliamentary party meeting in Leinster House over a policy issue.
One well-placed source said last week's meeting "got slightly out of hand" and that a number of "bitchy" comments were made. This source said that a comment, made by a supporter of Ms Harney, was highly critical of Mr McDowell and his political leadership ability. However, another equally well-placed source said no comment critical of Mr McDowell was made at that meeting, but could not rule out the possibility that something was said in informal conversation after the meeting or on its margins.
That meeting took place on Tuesday, June 13th. Whatever was said at it, Mr McDowell took exception to the remarks as they were reported to him. In the days immediately after that, Mr McDowell told a number of people of his belief that Ms Harney had told him she would resign the party leadership before the next election, giving him the chance to run for the post. If this did not happen, he said, he might not contest the next election.
A battle "by proxy" ensued during which various supporters of both Ms Harney and Mr McDowell became embroiled in a heated debate over the respective positions of both Ministers. Threats were made by people on both sides.
Some of Ms Harney's supporters made clear their view that if Mr McDowell said he would not run in the next election, a logical consequence would be for him to be removed from Cabinet to allow someone who would fight the next election become a Minister.
Mr McDowell's assertion of a deal similar to that claimed by supporters of the British chancellor Gordon Brown in relation to his succession of Tony Blair has been well known for several years.
Those loyal to Ms Harney acknowledge that he has never made any overt "moves" before to try to force a change at the top.
Mr McDowell left the PDs in 1997, and despite being made Attorney General in 1999, he did not commit himself to run again for the party until early 2002. While negotiating his return to the party, he made clear that he had ambitions to be party leader.
By last weekend, reports that Mr McDowell was threatening not to run were widespread within the PDs. The party trustees arranged a meeting with him but no resolution of the issue emerged from that meeting.
By Monday, relations between some members of the party had become fraught, and people were made aware that Mr McDowell would be raising the issue of the leadership at the next parliamentary party meeting the following day.
"People were expecting a bloodbath," according to one source.
Mr McDowell did raise the issue of the leadership at the outset of the meeting and brought along what some described as "a dossier". He quoted from the dossier, outlining various meetings and conversations from a number of years ago, during which he claimed various commitments were made that Ms Harney would be standing down as leader before the projected 2007 election.
The meeting became heated at various stages. Every TD and Senator spoke. The vast majority was totally opposed to any leadership debate. The chairman of the party, John Dardis, intervened and said it was "crazy" to be having such a debate less than 12 months away from a general election.
He warned that if it became public knowledge that the party had even touched on the subject, it could be damaging.
Facing such internal opposition, Mr McDowell then withdrew his bid to raise the leadership debate and acknowledged that the time was not correct. His comments were described as being gracious. Following this intervention there was what was described as a unanimous decision to move on to debate electoral strategy.