IF FIANNA Fail is to consider moving a motion in the Dail calling on the Minister for Social Welfare to "retract his erroneous statement and correct the record of the House" on the appointment of five advisers to his private office.
Mr De Rossa has insisted that a job notice carried in the Democratic Left publication, Forum could not be regarded as an advertisement in the commonly accepted sense of the term. He had stated in the House that the posts were not advertised but it subsequently emerged that applications for the jobs were invited under the word "vacancies", in Forum.
The Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, has said the party will "pursue this matter through every available channel" so that the record of the House is corrected.
Following a meeting of the Fianna Fail Parliamentary Party yesterday, where the matter was discussed at length, Mr Ray Burke said that "by any stretch of the Oxford dictionary's definition of the word advertisement, this was a jobs advertisement".
Billing the controversy as "Fommgate", Mr Joe Walsh of Fianna Fail said it represented "another cog in the litany of acts perpetrated by this rainbow government" that flew in the face of supposed virtues of openness, accountability and transparency.
Mr De Rossa had refused to correct his statement to the House and it was "appalling" that the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, and the Tanaiste, Mr Spring, condoned: this "unacceptable behaviour", Mr Walsh added.