The Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, has written to the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, asking him to investigate how information for a reply to a parliamentary question was withheld from the Dail but later leaked to the media.
Mr Billy Timmins, a Fine Gael TD for Wicklow, had asked if the Department of Finance had disposed of any assets or property with a value above u £200,000 between 1987 and 1992 without putting the sale to public tender.
In a written reply to the question last Wednesday, Mr McCreevy noted it had "not been possible to assemble the information requested by the deputy in the time available . . . I will communicate with the deputy at the earliest opportunity".
However, it transpired that a journalist had seen material being used for an answer to Mr Timmins's question. On Thursday, the journalist contacted Mr Timmins. According to Mr Bruton, this person asked the Wicklow TD if he knew that a file embarrassing to him [Mr Bruton] had been discovered when a reply was being prepared.
The file referred to the sale in January 1987 of a property on Merrion Square, Dublin, by the Office of Public Works to Irish Intercontinental Bank. Mr Bru ton, who was then Minister for Finance, authorised the sale. IIB is at the centre of the controversy over the Ansbacher scheme.
On Thursday evening, Mr Bruton contacted the General Secretary of the Department of Finance, Mr Paddy Mullarkey, and the chairman of the OPW, Mr Barry Murphy. Mr Bruton was in Brussels so his adviser, Mr Roy Dooney, met Mr Murphy.
According to Mr Bruton, the OPW chairman "gave Mr Dooney a draft reply which had been prepared by the OPW to Deputy Timmins's question and it seems to me to contain the relevant information which Deputy Timmins had sought, including a reference to the sale of the property in Merrion Square".
Mr Bruton said "the notion that full and accurate information might be withheld from a deputy is, in itself, extremely serious . . . it is even more serious, however, if it transpires the information was withheld . . . for the purposes of malevolent and inaccurate private briefings to the media".
In a statement issued last night, the Secretary General of the Department of Finance said that having conducted a thorough investigation he was satisfied no leak had originated from within the department.