The cabinet will consider radical proposals to reform the Oireachtas within weeks following what the Government claims was a Fine Gael "hijacking" of plans from private all-party discussions.
The Government Chief Whip, Mr Seamus Brennan, maintained last night that this week's Fine Gael policy document on Oireachtas, judicial and public service reform was substantially "hijacked by Fine Gael and presented by them as their own ideas". Three-quarters of what was in the document had already been considered in lengthy talks between party whips earlier this year, he said, and much of it would have been agreed shortly.
He accused Fine Gael of damaging the prospects of agreement, saying it had introduced partisanship into the issue by going on "a solo run". As a result, he said, he would now bring his own proposals to Cabinet for approval "within weeks".
However, Fine Gael's chief whip, Mr Charles Flanagan, said last night there had been no lengthy talks, only one meeting at which Mr Brennan had promised to circulate a document. "That was months ago and nothing has happened," he said.
"Noel Dempsey called our paper empty rhetoric yesterday. Now they say we stole it from them. These guys are all over the place. To suggest the Government's clothes have been stolen on the issue is nonsense: they have no clothes on the issue."
But Mr Brennan insisted the parties had been moving towards agreement on an issue which has been dogged in the past by the failure to reach all-party agreement. "We would have ended up in September (this month) or October with a radical package that could be agreed by all sides. I didn't have a problem with most of the proposals: most of them were put by me or to me during those discussions."
The Fine Gael document, published on Tuesday, proposes a reduction in the number of deputies, doubling sitting hours, an independent Oireachtas budget, sharpening the format of Dail debates and question time and setting up a dedicated Oireachtas television channel. A number of these proposals were in the report of the DIRT inquiry, while others have been around in various forms for some years.
Mr Brennan said he now wanted to know Fine Gael's intentions. "They can't have it both ways. If they want to agree long-term changes we can do that. But if they want to revert to adversarial point-scoring they can do that, too, but they'll scupper the prospect of agreement."
Fine Gael suffered embarrassment yesterday after absenteeism by its members caused the abandonment of an Oireachtas Committee meeting to discuss the Standards in Public Office Bill, a day after the party Oireachtas reform document was published.
None of the party's six members of the committee showed up for yesterday's meeting, which was also to hear evidence from senior executives of ACC Bank in relation to the DIRT issue. Their absence was due to the two-day Fine Gael parliamentary party meeting in Athlone. However, the committee was not told they would not be there until shortly before the meeting was due to take place.
A party spokesman said last night that its convenor on the committee, Mr Jimmy Deenihan TD, regretted that "there was a misunderstanding within the Fine Gael group" which led to their absence. "He regrets the inconvenience caused both to the parties due to give evidence today and the members who turned up," a spokesman said.
The missing Fine Gael members were the party's finance spokesman, Mr Michael Noonan, fellow TDs Mr Deenihan, Mr Ulick Burke, Mr Louis Belton and Mr Brendan McGahon and Senator Joe Doyle.
Labour's two members - finance spokesman Mr Derek McDowell and Mr Sean Ryan - were also absent, attending an all-day parliamentary party meeting in Neilstown, west Dublin.