Fine Gael has accused the Taoiseach of setting out to deceive the public on the Ellis affair, by maintaining that the removal of Mr John Ellis from the chair of the Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture was entirely a matter for the committee.
The party's deputy leader, Mrs Nora Owen, said Mr Ellis held his membership and chairmanship of the committee "by dint of a decision made by Bertie Ahern, as Fianna Fail party leader and Taoiseach, that that was what he wanted".
She said Mr Ahern was directly involved in deciding chairmanships of Oireachtas committees.
The government parties traditionally chair and have majorities on all Oireachtas committees barring the Public Accounts Committee, which is always chaired by a member of the opposition.
Chairmanships are decided at party level, with the government majority on the committee then formally approving the choice of the government parties.
"The technical action of voting in a chairman of any of these committees is a rubber-stamping procedure, given the government parties' guaranteed level of support," Mrs Owen said in a statement.
"Everyone in Leinster House knows that. For Mr Ahern to try to persuade the public otherwise is for him to promote an untenable fiction.
"It is unworthy of a Taoiseach and a party leader, and he should come clean on the matter."
She said that whatever tomorrow's meeting of the Agriculture Committee decided, Mr Ellis could be removed from his chairmanship by a Dail vote.
"This course of action was available to Mr Ahern and his Government from the very outset," she went on.
"With such a powerful sanction ultimately available to him, the Taoiseach could have asserted his moral and legal authority from the very earliest moment in this long-running saga.
"But, typically, Mr Ahern chose instead to obfuscate and delay the decision until he could find someone else to blame for it.
"By lunchtime today the Taoiseach's fingerprints seem to be all over a cunningly choreographed pincer movement from Cork to Donegal around the hapless Mr Ellis.
"In light of the Taoiseach's behaviour, I believe the Ellis affair is no longer about Mr Ellis himself, but about the authority of the Office of Taoiseach as exercised by Mr Ahern.
"It is clear to me that he has demonstrated a total lack of appreciation of his leadership role as Taoiseach and as leader of Fianna Fail."