Former Minister of State, Mr Ned O'Keeffe, is to be appointed by the Government to chair a new Oireachtas Committee to investigate competitiveness problems facing Irish business.
The Cork East TD, who was one of the top 10 vote-getters in the State in last year's general election, quit as Minister of State for Agriculture in February 2001.
Since then, he has been a persistent thorn in the side of the Government and has alleged that the Fianna Fáil/Progressive Democrats alliance is "the most right-wing government" since the 1920s.
He will be appointed to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Corporate Affairs next week, once the Department of Finance presents the terms of reference to the Houses of the Oireachtas.
The promotion will be worth an additional €15,000 a year to Mr O'Keeffe, while the vice-chairmanship, worth €8,000, will be awarded to an Opposition politician.
The move will be interpreted as an effort by the Taoiseach, who has been criticised privately by some within the parliamentary party, to bring order to his increasingly unruly ranks of backbenchers.
Mr O'Keeffe quit as Minister of State after it was alleged in December 2000 that pigs housed at his family farm in Mitchelstown had been fed meat and bonemeal.
A subsequent investigation by the Public Offices Commission found that he had inadvertently breached ethics legislation. The Dáil suspended him for 10 days.
In a speech to the Dáil in March 2002, a visibly angry Mr O'Keeffe said he had "no doubt" that there had been "a concerted campaign" to force his resignation from office.
He said he was also "absolutely satisfied" that the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, had "behaved in a manner which certainly questioned his integrity on several occasions".
Meanwhile, the Fianna Fáil chairman of another Dáil committee has complained sharply that Oireachtas bodies are being given pointless exercises.
Laois-Offaly TD, Mr Sean Fleming, the chairman of the Dáil Committee on Finance and the Public Service, said that all committees are supposed to discuss all 2003 departmental estimates by the summer.
"It is a pointless exercise discussing the issue of expenditure at this stage of the year when half of the money is already spent and most of the remainder of the money is already committed," he complained.
He said he would demand that, in future, Oireachtas committees look at the next year's spending plans in November of the previous year, when the Estimates are announced.
"All organisations, whether they are public bodies or private companies, discuss and approve their budgets in advance. No organisation can operate on the basis of approving budgets half- way through the year," he commented.