As Budget Day approaches, the Government is coming under increasing pressure to extend medical card entitlements to low-paid workers.
But the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has warned the purse-strings will have to be tightened because of a dramatic downturn in the economy and there will be less cash to spend on Wednesday.
Tomorrow's Private Members' Time in the Dβil will debate the medical-card issue, when the Labour Party will attempt to split Independent TDs away from the minority coalition Government.
A motion will call for the immediate implementation of the Health Strategy, which had envisaged an extra 200,000 being covered by medical cards in 2002.
Fianna Fβil backbenchers have already expressed concern about the decision to freeze the availability of health cards.
And, with a general election pending, it is likely to become the source of heated debate within their party rooms on Wednesday morning, before the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, rises to deliver his Budget.
With the Opposition parties in full cry on an issue that has direct and immediate appeal to low-paid families, the Government may decide that an early U-turn, providing for a limited extension of the scheme, would make political sense.
If there is to be change, it is likely to involve the reallocation of additional monies that had been earmarked for other elements of the Health Strategy, but not yet announced. Mr McCreevy is understood to be adamant that no extra money - above what was already agreed in protracted negotiations with the Minister for Health, Mr Martin - will be made available on Budget day.
A suggestion that Mr McCreevy might raise extra money at this time through an increase in employees' PRSI contributions is being resisted by the Progressive Democrats.
The Minister is also expected to reject a suggestion by the Labour Party that all those earning less than the minimum wage should be removed from the tax net.
Identifying Labour's pre-Budget priorities at a press conference yesterday, the party's spokesman on finance, Mr Derek McDowell, said Government borrowing should be increased to £1.2 billion next year to remove minimum wage-earners from the tax net and to increase social welfare benefits.
The Minister's obsession with cutting taxes for the wealthy had, Mr McDowell said, led him to spending £3 billion on income-tax cuts alone.
The Labour Party urged that the £815 million due to be invested in the national pension fund this year should, instead, be spent on roads and other necessary capital projects. It made no sense, he said, to borrow in order to save.