The Government parties are seeking a joint position on whether to call on Mr Liam Lawlor to resign his Dail seat. The Labour Party, meanwhile, has claimed the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, is afraid of the jailed deputy.
While Labour and the Green Party have agreed to a Fine Gael call for an all-party statement seeking Mr Lawlor's resignation, there was no response from the Taoiseach last night. A spokesman said Mr Ahern had not had a chance to consider the matter. He had spent much of yesterday dealing with Northern Ireland and the teachers' strike.
However, the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, last night described Mr Lawlor's position as a public representative as "untenable". But she did not endorse the call for an all-party statement asking him to resign. She said she wanted to consider the position and did not want to "play party politics".
Both Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats are keen to avoid public division on the matter but are set to be forced into a response by the Opposition.
Fine Gael, Labour and the Green Party have agreed to put forward a joint motion in private members' time on January 30th unless the Government has responded positively by then.
Mr Ahern's response so far - that it is purely a matter for Mr Lawlor - contrasts sharply with his stance in 1996 in relation to the former Fine Gael minister, Mr Michael Lowry. As leader of the opposition in December 1996, he questioned Mr Lowry's fitness to remain a member of the Dail.
Speaking in the Dail in relation to the funding of Mr Lowry's house extension by Dunnes Stores, Mr Ahern said: "The longer a satisfactory explanation is outstanding, the more the question arises as to whether Deputy Lowry, former chairman of Fine Gael, is a fit person to be a member of this House."
Fine Gael, Labour and the Green Party have agreed a draft joint statement calling for Mr Lawlor's resignation, and have submitted it to the Taoiseach and Tanaiste for their consideration. The initiative was taken by the Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, who wrote to all party leaders yesterday morning.
The Opposition motion, set for the day the Dail resumes, would seriously embarrass the Government party leaders if they have reached no agreed position by then.
The PDs have already made it clear that they support the principle behind such a motion, with Ms Harney telling reporters yesterday that she believed Mr Lawlor's position as a public representative was untenable.
"I strongly believe that, and so do the Progressive Democrats," she said. This followed a comment by the PD senator, Mr John Dardis, on RTE radio yesterday morning that he thought such a statement would be a good idea.
Ms Harney emphasised she was speaking for her party and not for the Government, and that a decision was ultimately a matter solely for Mr Lawlor.
Mr Bruton's letter to the other leaders said: "Notwithstanding the current personal distress for Deputy Lawlor and his family, it is best for political life that he resign his Dail seat now.
"It is not really viable that someone who as a legislator helped establish a tribunal to assist the Dail in seeking the truth, should continue as a legislator once he is shown to have obstructed that same tribunal," Mr Bruton said.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, made another attack on Mr Ahern last night, accusing him of not caring about damage done to public life and being unwilling to lead.
At a party meeting in Dublin, Mr Quinn said Mr Ahern had a habit of turning a blind eye to unexplained wealth and being afraid to criticise Mr Lawlor.
He suggested Mr Ahern had a close relationship with Mr Lawlor, having put him on his party's front bench when he became leader.