The Minister for Education appeared increasingly isolated last night after the Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil distanced themselves from his use of civil servants to produce election literature for party candidates.
With the Standards in Public Office Commission set to seek an explanation from the Minister early next week, Mr Ahern said yesterday that he would examine reports that the Minster used Department officials to prepare hundreds of information packs for the exclusive use of Fianna Fáil candidates.
But while Fine Gael's education spokeswoman, Ms Olywn Enright, said the Minister's "abuse of his position and misappropriation of funds" would be a resigning matter in other states, Labour stopped short of calling for Mr Dempsey's resignation.
With sources in Government circles privately questioning the Minister's judgement, Mr Ahern said the provision by Departments of information for political parties was "not in any way a problem", but he added that the preparation of a documents for a party was unusual.
The Taoiseach said: "What I'm saying is if the document was prepared in the Department exclusively for a political party, that would be different thing.
"That is, the preparation of information is not in any way a problem. If you prepare the actual document that would be a different thing," Mr Ahern said.
Mr Dempsey acknowledged on RTÉ radio yesterday that he had personally given the information, collated by his Department's press office, to Fianna Fáil candidates. However, he denied that the information gave Fianna Fáil candidates an advantage over their rivals at public expense.
"That information is freely available to any other person whether they're members of political parties or anything else," he said.
Mr Dempsey said twice that he "was requested by Fianna Fáil" to provide the information for local election candidates.
However, the party's chief spokeswoman last night said she was not aware of any individual request to the Minister from a Fianna Fáil official. "Candidates in a general way may have requested this information, but I'm not aware of any individual requests," she said.
Mr Dempsey's office last night distributed to journalists samples of the information packs on the Government's eduction record.
But the 46-page pack given to The Irish Times did not include pages tailored for Fianna Fáil candidates. The word "confidential" was also excised from the briefing document on special needs services.
This was in contrast to the documents broadcast by TV3 on Thursday, which showed that the material was packaged for Fianna Fáil local election candidates on behalf of the Minister.
Despite sustained Opposition protest yesterday, it appeared that Mr Dempsey remained free to continue his distribution of the information.
While Mr Dempsey insisted that he had done nothing wrong, it emerged that the Standards in Public Office Commission was not empowered to take any interim action against him.
The commission said yesterday that it would not be making any comment until it was in possession of all information about the case.
The commission can initiate an inquiry under the Ethics in Public Office Acts, which governs the conduct of Ministers.
It can also send files to the DPP if it believes there has been a breach of the spending guidelines set out in the Electoral Acts.
Mr Dempsey said he had no idea how much it cost his Department to collate the information. Stating that he would "not dream of abusing my position or abusing taxpayers' money", he said he would abide by any ruling the commission made.
Labour's environment spokesman, Mr Eamon Gilmore, said he was not prepared to call for Mr Dempsey's resignation for the sake of landing a punch on the Minister. "I think calling for somebody's resignation is not something you just throw out." However, Mr Gilmore said Ministers "must be made to stop treating their Departments as if they were Fianna Fáil cumainn".
