A bitter row has broken out over who can claim responsibility for an announcement yesterday by Minister for the Marine, Mr Dermot Ahern, that a Kerry pier and breakwater costing close to €7 million is to be given the go-ahead.
There has been a 109-year campaign for the new pier in Cromane, near Killorglin, one of the country's biggest shellfish ports.
Independent TD Mr Jackie Healy-Rae, one of the four independents on whose support the previous Government depended, said he was claiming "total and absolute responsibility for this project".
The announcement is subject to planning and Kerry County Council are to provide a quarter of the €6.5 million.
Mr Healy-Rae also said: "I initiated the pier in Cromane the very first day and I brought Michael Woods, the then Minister for the Marine, to Cromane. It was one of Bertie's [the Taoiseach's] guaranteed commitments to me [in 1997]."
Mr Healy-Rae also claimed he was deliberately "cut out" of the meeting in Cromane, where the announcement was made early yesterday that he was excluded not by Mr Ahern, the Minister, who was in Cromane, but by Mr John O'Donoghue's people.
Mr O'Donoghue was the cause of stopping him, he said. "I was the first person the Minister [Dermot Ahern] asked for yesterday. I was to be back there today. I never got the message. They tried to cut me out, but let the people decide."
A spokesman for Mr Ahern said the decision on the issuing of invitations was left locally. Mr Ahern had acknowledged Mr Healy-Rae's contribution in a local radio interview, and the Minister's private secretary had been in contact with him.
Sources close to Mr O'Donoghue, who welcomed the announcement yesterday, dismissed the independent TD's claims that he was responsible for the new pier.