The Green Party leader, Mr Trevor Sargent, has told ireland.comthe Labour-sponsored motion of no confidence in the Government would certainly be supported by the Greens.
"From our point of view, it's important to highlight that the Government has a problem in seeing the difference between Fianna Fail interests and the common good and this has been a pattern which has been repeated time and again," he said.
Mr Sargent criticised the Taoiseach for "failing to take control" of the Laffoy child abuse commission and for "the fact that he seems to have a problem seeing the conflict" between the Department of Education's control over the tribunal and the fact that the tribunal would ultimately make findings about that department and the institutions over which it had had control.
He said the handling of the tribunal and Mr Ahern's failure to take control showed "a serious lack of leadership". The "double standard" in Government between the handling of other tribunals, which had not taken as serious a toll in terms of human misery and the handling of the Laffoy commission needed to be confronted, Mr Sargent said. It was time the Government accepted its shortcomings and listened to the views of the victims on how to proceed.
"It just shows the Government has failed to appreciate that they are dealing with enormous pain. They don't seem to be able to empathise with that. The central point really is that the Government has been shown not to be a government for all the people, but a government of self-interest."
Asked whether it appeared the Minister for Education would be made to publicly take responsibility for the Government's handling of the Laffoy commission, Mr Sargent said it looked like this would be the case in that the Taoiseach had refused to take control and was leaving Mr Dempsey "hanging on the vine".
Accepting that the opposition parties would not have the requisite number of seats in the Dail to push through a motion of no confidence, Mr Sargent said the Government may survive such a motion, but it would be a "Pyrrhic victory". "I think the Government is losing support like sand out of an hourglass," he said.