Government backbenchers yesterday claimed that relations had been damaged between the PDs and Fianna Fáil following the decision not to put any public money into the "Bertie Bowl" project.
Dublin South West Fianna Fáil TD Mr Conor Lenihan said if the PDs continued to "posture and push" on issues like this, there would not be stable Government for the next five years.
Last night Cork South Central Fianna Fail T.D, Mr Batt O'Keeffe, joined Mr Lenihan in predicting that the climb down on the national stadium may damage relations between the two Government partners.
He said he was "very disappointed" at the decision to shelve the plan to state fund the project and seek private investors instead.
"I think this could be damaging long term. It is not good." he said.
Other Fianna Fail backbenchers were slow to publicly express their dismay . But privately they were saying that there is huge disquiet in the party at how the Taoiseach got it "so badly wrong".
"He misjudged it completely. He should have seen the writing on the wall before now and let go weeks ago", one T.D said.
Fine Gael called for the establishment of a forum to discuss the future of Irish sport in the light of the Government's decision not to invest any public money in the "Bertie Bowl" project.
The Party leader, Mr Enda Kenny, said it was time for all national sporting organisations, along with political and business leaders, to sit down and discuss the provision of a modern stadium for soccer and rugby.
Mr Kenny said a forum needed to be set up with all the sporting bodies to investigate how we could move forward from here.
The party's spokesman on sport, Mr Jimmy Deenihan, said: "Decisions now need to be taken on what the best steps forward are. Over the last two years, the Government has run roughshod over the plans and aspirations of our sportsmen and women. This must not happen again."
The Labour Party finance spokesman, Mr Brendan Howlin, said the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, must share a huge part of the responsibility for the Stadium Ireland finance debacle. "As Minister for Finance, he sanctioned the expenditure of huge sums of public money on what was essentially a vanity project for the Taoiseach,"
He said Mr McCreevy stood to be the political beneficiary of the transfer of the State laboratories to a site in his own constituency in Celbridge, Co Kildare, at a cost of almost €200 million.
Campus Stadium Ireland, the company set up to oversee the sports campus plan, is to stay in operation in the short term to oversee the completion of the €60 million aquatic centre in Abbottstown. There was confusion yesterday over the status of the company, but it is understood that it will not be disbanded yet and it may have a role in overseeing the private-sector submissions for the development of Abbottstown.
The ad seeking submissions from private investors will be published in national newspapers on Friday. Initially, the Departments of Finance, Arts and Sport and the OPW will assess the submissions.