The Taoiseach faces two hazardous manoeuvres this week as he attempts to assert his and his Government's authority by removing Ms Beverley Flynn from Fianna Fáil and Judge Brian Curtin from the bench. Mark Brennock, Chief Political Correspondent, reports.
It emerged last night that Judge Curtin has asked the Government for more time - possibly another fortnight - to reply to a Government request that he comment on the facts that emerged from the prosecution case against him on charges of possessing child pornography.
The judge's request presents a difficulty to today's Cabinet meeting which will decide the Government's next move.
While the Government has made it clear that it wants the judge to resign or be sacked without financial compensation following the collapse of the case against him, it is also anxious to be able to say it gave him the opportunity to defend himself should he challenge any future removal of him from office.
Government sources said last night that the request for more time may indicate that the judge is preparing to respond in substance to the Cabinet's request for an explanation, rather than insist that since he was found not guilty, the Government has no business in starting what may be seen as another trial of the matter through Oireachtas impeachment proceedings.
The Cabinet may therefore be willing to give him more time.
The Fianna Fáil Parliamentary Party is expected to vote overwhelmingly this evening to expel Ms Beverley Flynn from its ranks. However, Ms Flynn and her supporters have been lobbying members of the party's 95-member national executive intensively in advance of a meeting on Friday, at which a two-thirds majority will be required to expel her from the party altogether.
Last Friday, Ms Flynn received the unanimous backing of the Fianna Fáil organisation in Mayo.
Some 350 party activists attended a private joint meeting of Ms Flynn's county, regional and cumann organisations and approved a motion calling on the Taoiseach to expel her from neither the parliamentary party nor the party itself. Ms Flynn's father, the former minister and EU Commissioner, Mr Pádraig Flynn, attended the meeting in Castlebar and spoke strongly in support of his daughter.
A number of national executive members have said privately that they believe expulsion from the party is too harsh a punishment, on the basis that no attempt was made to expel previous wrongdoers such as Mr Ray Burke and Mr Denis Foley.
Ms Flynn is to seek a secret ballot at the Friday meeting in Leinster House in the belief that some of these people will be reluctant to vote against the leadership on the issue if there is an open "show of hands" vote.
However, party sources say they believe the motion will be carried comfortably, although they acknowledge that Ms Flynn will receive some support.
At both meetings Ms Flynn is to make a strong argument that she is being singled out for overly harsh punishment.
She is expected to argue that while she lost her recent appeal against a High Court jury finding that she had encouraged and assisted others to evade tax while an employee of National Irish Bank, she had been merely a junior bank official at the time implementing the policy of one of the world's largest banks.
While those who formulated the bank's policy remain unpunished, she is having her political career destroyed for selling offshore investment products that the bank required her to sell, she will say.
The motion to expel her from the parliamentary party has been tabled by the Government Chief Whip, Ms Mary Hanafin, although the Taoiseach is expected to be the first speaker proposing the motion tonight. Ms Flynn said yesterday that Fianna Fáil TDs who were seen to have transgressed in the past had had the whip removed from them, but that expulsion was highly unusual.
She told The Irish Times that she had been accepted as a Fianna Fáil member in Mayo, selected to run for election and elected as a Fianna Fáil TD there. "The move to remove me without consulting a single local person is completely undemocratic," she said.