The Dail debate to establish a tribunal of inquiry into planning in north Co Dublin has been postponed until tomorrow amid claims that the draft terms of reference are grossly deficient.
There was uproar among opposition parties in Leinster House when it emerged that the payment of £30,000 to the Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Burke, was not explicitly mentioned in the terms of reference published last night.
A Government spokesman confirmed that the Coalition would table amendments and he denied opposition claims that Mr Burke could be actually excluded from the judicial inquiry under the terms of reference as they stand.
A meeting of party whips last night agreed that the complexities of the terms of reference required further examination and that a Dail debate could not go ahead today.
Following Cabinet approval of the draft terms, and their subsequent circulation, the opposition immediately and unanimously dismissed them as defective. The main failure, it said, was that they do not explicitly include any inquiry into the circumstances of the £30,000 cash payment in 1989 to Mr Burke.
According to the Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, the terms of reference also seem to have been "specifically and carefully designed " to exclude Mr Burke from the inquiry. The Minister does not, he said, come within the terms as drafted and cannot be examined.
Mr Bruton also claimed that a section of the terms of reference was of doubtful legality and that most of the matters included were already public knowledge. `No costly tribunal" was required.
Describing the terms of reference for the latest tribunal as totally unsatisfactory and inadequate, the Labour party leader, Mr Dick Spring, said that, as drafted, they may well exclude Mr Burke totally from any inquiry since there would be no reason to even call him as a witness.
"We will be insisting, at the very least, that the terms of reference must cover the receipt of £30,000 by Ray Burke TD from Mr (James) Gogarty, in the presence of Mr (Michael) Bailey, referred to in Mr Burke's statement to Dail Eireann of the 10th September, 1997, and the circumstances, considerations and motives therefor.
"The tribunal must also examine the latest allegation that Mr Burke was supplied with a schedule of the relevant lands at the same meeting," Mr Spring said.
Mr Pat Rabbitte, of Democratic Left, said the Government was concentrating on the 726 acres and planning transactions but was not focusing on the "money trail" that began with the £30,000 donation to Mr Burke.
Amid continuous and bitter rancour across the floor of the Dail, the Ceann Comhairle, Mr Seamus Pattison, threatened to adjourn the House in a bid to restore order.
The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, argued that he could not alter the terms of the reference of the Moriarty tribunal on payments to politicians - to allow a judicial examination of the £30,000 donation to Mr Burke - but this was vehemently rejected as "wrong" by the opposition who claimed he was involved in "a smokescreen".
According to Mr Ahern, it would be unfair to include Mr Burke in the Moriarty tribunal and that this investigation would also take a considerable period to complete, possibly up to next summer.
Calls for a swift and conclusive tribunal were made at a 45-minute meeting of the Progressive Democrats but, according to sources, there was "general agreement" that the approach being adopted by the leadership was appropriate. The parliamentary party did not have the terms of reference before it for discussion.
The chairman of the parliamentary party, Sen Jim Gibbons, attended yesterday's discussions. He was not censured for his remarks on Monday that, if he was in Mr Burke's position, he would step aside for the duration of the tribunal.
Meanwhile, the Minister for the Environment and Rural Development, Mr Dempsey, told the Cabinet that his inquiries into the fate of 726 acres in north Co Dublin had not led to "a whole lot more that what is in the public domain".