The Labour Party leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte, has accused Fianna Fáil of running scared from the electorate after the Taoiseach said the by-elections in Meath and North Kildare should be put off until after Easter. Arthur Beesley, Political Reporter, reports.
Mr Ahern said it would be irresponsible to disrupt the Dáil debate on the Finance Bill and the Social Welfare Bill, but Mr Rabbitte said the Taoiseach knew that such a claim smacked of nonsense.
"The Taoiseach could hardly have come up with a more bogus reason for delaying the by-elections in Meath and North Kildare than the one he offered this morning.
"There is absolutely no reason whatever why consideration of either Bill should be disrupted." Fianna Fáil should not be allowed to hide behind "spurious excuses", Mr Rabbitte said.
"These elections will be the first real test of public opinion since last summer, and the people of Meath and North Kildare are entitled to have their say sooner rather than later."
It is open to Fine Gael to move the writ for the Meath by-election to fill the seat left vacant by Mr John Bruton, although the Taoiseach's remarks indicate that the Government might block moves to conduct the poll before Easter.
Given their Dáil majority, the Government parties would inevitably defeat Fine Gael if they sought to block its efforts to call a pre-Easter by-election.
But the Fine Gael TD, Mr Fergus O'Dowd, said his party would expect the Government to facilitate the party whenever it decided to move the writ.
He dismissed Mr Ahern's remarks as "absolute rubbish".
Fine Gael's official spokesman said the party leader, Mr Enda Kenny, would address the question of the writ very shortly, probably over the weekend.
Some in the party favour an early poll, although there is a contrary view that it should take time to establish its candidates in the field.
It is for Fianna Fáil to move the writ for the Kildare North poll to fill the seat vacated by the EU Commissioner and former minister for finance, Mr Charlie McCreevy.
At a party function yesterday morning in Co Kildare, Mr Ahern said Fianna Fáil had not put a lot of thought into the timing of the poll and was not pushed one way or the other.
However, he indicated that his party would discuss the question with the other parties on a date after Easter, which takes place this year on the weekend of Friday, March 25th.
"I mean, generally our feeling is that the campaign should be probably after Easter some time," he said.
"The period up to Easter, we have the busiest period of the year probably, having to pass the Finance Bill and the Social Welfare bill and some of the other important legislation. So there's no sense in disrupting that."
He went on to suggest that to hold the by-elections before Easter would disrupt the entire parliamentary session and "quite frankly would be irresponsible".
Mr Rabbitte said it was impossible to avoid any conclusion from such remarks other than that Fianna Fáil was running scared of the by-elections.
"In any event, both of the Bills mentioned by the Taoiseach are largely technical measures, which will receive their major consideration in committees, which will do their work within deadline, as they always do, irrespective of by-elections," he said.
"There will be no loss of sitting days between now and March 10th, and the long break put in place by the Government after that is totally unnecessary and wrong," Mr Rabbitte added.