Opposition politicians have criticised the Taoiseach for not giving a full account last Friday of his meeting in 1998 with NTL, the telecommunications company.
Mr Ahern issued a statement on the matter last Friday after the resignation of his special adviser Mr Paddy Duffy. Mr Duffy resigned after it was revealed that he was a director of the public affairs consultancy Dillon Consultants, which had advised NTL, the company which successfully bid for and bought Cablelink.
Mr Ahern's statement did not say the Cablelink issue had been raised during his meeting with NTL. His meeting on May 21st, 1998, with the managing director, Mr Owen Lamont, was organised after Mr Duffy had passed on a request from Dillon Consultants seeking a meeting.
Mr Ahern confirmed yesterday that during the meeting they had a discussion about the forthcoming sale of Cablelink. A Government spokesman also told The Irish Times on Sunday night that Mr Lamont had raised the issue during the meeting, and said his company would bid for Cablelink when it came on the market. However, in his statement Mr Ahern merely said his meeting with Mr Lamont had predated NTL's specific bid for Cablelink. This information, according to Fine Gael's spokesman on public enterprise yesterday, was "a fact that anybody with a calendar could have worked out".
Mr Ivan Yates maintained Mr Ahern's initial statement was "just one more example of the Taoiseach's inability to tell the whole truth when it comes to providing information".
"The Taoiseach's statement issued on Friday night last could have revealed that the sale of Cablelink was discussed when he met representatives of NTL/Cabletel in May 1998. Instead it only disclosed the anodyne fact that the meeting predated Cabletel's bid to buy Cablelink."
Labour's spokesman, Mr Pat Rabbitte, asked why Mr Ahern's initial statement had implied that the sale of Cablelink did not arise at his meeting with NTL in May 1998. "That statement, if not directly dishonest, is disingenuous in the extreme."