Taoiseach Bertie Ahern is not to face an investigation by the Standards in Public Office Commission ethics body into loans and gifts he says he received in the early 1990s.
The decision was announced by the commission in a brief statement after it had told two members of the public that it would not be proceeding further with their complaints.
Though expected, the commission's decision offers some good news to Mr Ahern, who will return to the Mahon tribunal witness box today.
The commission said that it had completed its consideration of complaints and that it "has decided that there is no basis on which to initiate an investigation under the Ethics in Public Office Acts 1995 and 2001".
The complaints claim Mr Ahern breached ethics legislation by appointing friends to State boards because they were his friends, as he told RTÉ during a lengthy TV interview last year.
Furthermore, the complainants, who have not been publicly identified, charged that Mr Ahern was guilty of failing to honour ethics legislation - introduced after the alleged acts occurred - because he had not declared any benefit from the loans.
The Standards in Public Office Commission cannot act on a possible breach of the various ethics Acts of its own accord, but can only do so if it gets an official complaint. It is understood more than one complaint was made.
The commission, which received the complaints late last year, never appointed an inquiry officer to carry out a formal investigation, which would have been the first stage in mounting a case against Mr Ahern.
Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said he would not wait until the tribunal produced its report in 18 months or two years' time to issue his judgment on the credibility of Mr Ahern's evidence.
"Bertie has been doing a 'hold me back' exercise for the past couple of months, that he wanted to tell his side of the story. The explanation that he has given in his first two days of evidence has been far from convincing, and far from credible. I am going to hear what he has to say but, so far, the story is far from credible.
"Am I going to wait until the tribunal reports in 18 months' time? No, I won't. There is a point where a political judgment will have to be made. I will hear what he has to say, and we'll make the political judgment after that," he said.
The Labour leader also criticised the former head of the planning tribunal, Judge Fergus Flood, for saying Mr Ahern would not suffer adverse findings in the final report unless significant new evidence is produced.
