The PD leader may have been attempting to create the space for himself to jump either way, writes Stephen Collins, Political Correspondent
Michael McDowell is under almost as much political pressure as Bertie Ahern as the countdown continues to tomorrow's Dáil denouement. The Tánaiste's fate and that of his party will depend on his response to whatever mixture of explanation and contrition that the Taoiseach is prepared to offer for his acceptance of money from businessmen when he was minister for finance.
There is a wide belief across the political spectrum that Mr McDowell has been preparing the ground to support Mr Ahern tomorrow, but it is equally plausible to argue that what he has been attempting to do in his various public utterances is to create the space for himself to jump either way, depending on the Taoiseach's response.
Mr McDowell has certainly created some confusion about his attitude in three public statements about the issue. He appeared to veer from an initial soft line last Wednesday to a hard one on Thursday and back again to a soft line in Saturday's Irish Times.
Fianna Fáil sources took great consolation from the Tánaiste's line on Saturday. There is now a strong conviction in the major Coalition partner that he will almost certainly stay on in government.
"It's obvious that McDowell knows the PDs can't walk out because we have the numbers to keep going without him. Anyway McDowell doesn't want to be the shortest-serving Tánaiste in history," remarked one Fianna Fáil TD.
This assessment could well be as equally flawed as the brief panic in Fianna Fáil on Thursday night that the Tánaiste was determined to walk unless the party changed its leader and installed somebody new in the Taoiseach's office.
The core of the problem that remains is the gulf that was revealed between the standards deemed acceptable by the Taoiseach and those regarded as unacceptable by the PDs.
Given the attitudes expressed not only by the Taoiseach, but by most of the Fianna Fáil politicians who have gone public on the issue, that is a circle that cannot be squared.
The Taoiseach's decision to pay back the money, with interest, to those who gave it to him in 1993 and 1994 has taken some of the heat out of the issue and led to Opposition speculation that a deal has already been done with the Tánaiste to put the Coalition back on a sound footing. The problem for the PDs is that they will be in the firing line whatever they do. If the party walks out of Coalition, they will be left in no man's land between the Government and Opposition and accused of the old charge of demanding heads on plates; if they stay, they will be accused of underwriting unacceptable standards.
If the PDs stay in Coalition, the Opposition is likely to put down a motion of confidence in the Taoiseach to force Mr McDowell and his colleagues to underwrite Mr Ahern's continued leadership.
However, it is still not clear what the PDs will ultimately do. Mr McDowell's three public statements reflected the dilemma he faces and in content they were actually quite consistent. What was different about them was the tone, particularly the hardline television image on Thursday night.
The Tánaiste's first statement last Wednesday night did not go as far in underwriting the Taoiseach as the Opposition claimed.
Although he emphasised his belief that Bertie Ahern was an honest man and a good leader, he gave himself wriggle room by putting in qualifying statements that gave him an out if new information emerged.
When that happened the next day, the Tánaiste laid his emphasis on acceptable standards of behaviour but repeated many of the positive sentiments of his first statement.
The third statement reversed the order by accentuating the positive, but he did not row back on his position about accountability and standards.
It ultimately depends on what Mr McDowell and his party decide is more important.
On one side of the scales is political pragmatism and proportionality, and on the other is the question of whether clearly unacceptable standards of behaviour by senior politicians can be ignored.
The political reality is that there is considerable public sympathy for the Taoiseach. That may well tip the balance and encourage Mr McDowell to stay on board, particularly if Mr Ahern expresses some contrition about his behaviour in the past and accepts that it was wrong for a minister to take money for his private use.
If the Taoiseach does that and couples it with a full and detailed explanation of all the payments, no matter how apparently incredible, then the Tánaiste may have enough political cover to remain in office.
However, he will come under strong attack from the Opposition parties if he does so.
Mr McDowell once described his Labour predecessor in office, Dick Spring, as "morally brain dead" for accepting, as the passports for investment controversy rumbled on, the explanation Albert Reynolds provided for the fact that his family pet-food firm had received money.
Mr Ahern's explanation for the various amounts of money he received may well hang together as a defensible story, but nobody in politics really believes it. Underwriting it will certainly put pressure on Mr McDowell's political credibility.
Whether Mr McDowell and the Progressive Democrats can afford to underwrite it and retain their own political credibility is the big question they will have to decide over the coming days.