The Taoiseach had a quiet word in the ear of Mr Jackie Healy-Rae at a function in the Dail before Christmas to launch Ted Nealon's political directory. Mr Ahern told the South Kerry Independent TD he was to be chairman of the Environment Committee, a perk much sought after by Fianna Fail backbenchers.
During a holiday in Kerry last summer, Mr Ahern had a friendly meeting with Mr Healy-Rae, and sent a message, glowing with goodwill, to the colourful Kerry deputy when his biography, The Mighty Healy-Rae, by Donal Hickey of the Examiner, was launched in Killarney.
As in the case of Ms Mildred Fox, Wicklow, and Mr Harry Blaney, Donegal North-East, the other two pro-Government Independents, Mr Ahern is keeping him sweet.
Although nothing has ever been put on paper, the Taoiseach has left his Ministers in no doubt the three are to be facilitated. Sometimes it can be of a practical nature, as when a ministerial car ferried a delayed Mr Healy-Rae to Heuston Station to catch a train.
Cabinet sources say that Mr Ahern is determined nothing should happen to end suddenly his first term as Taoiseach. One Fianna Fail Minister said: "He saw how two governments under Albert Reynolds, one with the PDs and the other with Labour, collapsed in traumatic circumstances, and his worst nightmare would be for it to recur."
The Independents' support for the Government means Mr HealyRae, Ms Fox and Mr Blaney have full access to all Ministers and Ministers of State. While the spin-off for their constituents is not as visible as when the then Taoiseach, Mr Charles Haughey, made a multi-million pound deal with the Independent, Mr Tony Gregory, for his Dublin Central constituency, to secure his support in the early 1980s, the three are doing very well for their constituents - in a low-key way.
Routine constituency work, whether it relates to a query about a headage payment or a place on a hospital waiting list, is processed rapidly. It is this bread and butter politics that ultimately copper-fastens a Dail seat.
None of the three TDs would discuss what they have secured for their constituencies with The Irish Times, keenly aware that any trumpeting in the media would generate further envy among Government TDs.
Word of a grant for road improvements or a school extension is passed on as soon as it is approved and it then becomes a race to the fax machine to get it to the local media ahead of, or as at least as fast as, the local Government TD. This has generated constituency tensions, not least in South Kerry, where there is strong competition between Mr Healy-Rae and the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Mr O'Donoghue. Mr Healy-Rae was a staunch Fianna Fail activist before running as an Independent.
He is seen as the most successful of the three Independents in securing funding. Constituency sources say that this is most evident in improved roads, not least the road, off the Cork-Killarney road, to his native village of Kilgarvan.
One of the few specific issues he read into the record of the Dail - a £1 million pier for Cromane - has been approved, but there is a delay in its construction because of a local dispute about its location.
Ms Fox's most politically significant achievement so far was last October when she forced the Government to change its position on the funding of the Louth residents' group in its legal action against Sellafield. She was supported by Mr Healy-Rae and Mr Blaney at the time. Funding for a CAT-scan machine at St Columcille's Hospital, Loughlinstown - a key demand by Ms Fox when she helped vote the Government into office - has been approved.
She remains confident a commitment to provide a new secondary school in Kilcoole will be met, as will the provision of a sub-office of Wicklow County Council for Blessington and a new district veterinary office for Co Wicklow.
At no time has Mr Blaney put any of his demands on the public record. "I will not say what I have been given," he told The Irish Times. "I have got some small things, nothing significant, but the Government is young yet. I will say what I did get on the day the Dail dissolves."