Opposition: The Green Party has asked the Government to set aside time in the Dáil this week to deal with the controversy surrounding the personal payments from wealthy friends to the Taoiseach.
The party has asked that Bertie Ahern would be available to make a statement and for Opposition TDs to be able to question him and to debate issues arising out of the statement.
It comes as Labour leader Pat Rabbitte called on the Taoiseach to make a full statement on the payments in advance of the Dáil returning on Wednesday afternoon. He warned that it would be "inevitable" that the issue would be raised by the Opposition if he did not make a full statement on the issue.
Mr Rabbitte and Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny will have the opportunity to ask Mr Ahern about the affair on Wednesday afternoon during leader's questions. The questions could be ruled out of order, however, by the Ceann Comhairle because they refer to matters before a tribunal.
Green Party finance spokesman Dan Boyle said his party had made the request for a special debate to Government Chief Whip Tom Kitt yesterday.
"The issue at hand in the public domain now is that the Taoiseach received money from business sources," he said. "How the Taoiseach used that money is irrelevant to us. There's a need for clarification on the part of the Taoiseach in terms of him being minister for finance at the time and seeing how much was involved, who the money came from and whether receipt of this money, consciously or subconsciously, influence any of the decisions he made as minister for finance."
Mr Kitt is not expected to respond to the request until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest.
Mr Rabbitte has also criticised comments from Mr Ahern which he said suggested that Opposition parties were involved in leaking the tribunal information about the payments.
"That is absolutely outrageous and as far as my party is concerned in any event, I absolutely deny it." He said it was most likely the leak had come from someone being inquired into by the tribunal. "It's happened before and the suggestion that there's some sinister plot and that somehow the Opposition was involved is of course nonsense".
On RTÉ's Morning Ireland he also criticised the lack of comment by Tánaiste and Minister for Justice Michael McDowell.