An Oireachtas committee will meet on Thursday to decide whether to remove Mr Liam Lawlor as its vice-chairman.
The PDs' representative on the Finance and Public Service Committee, Senator John Dardis, will support the Fine Gael motion of no confidence in Mr Lawlor.
The committee chairman, Fianna Fail deputy Mr Michael Ahern, said he was unsure how his party colleagues would vote. "There is no view on it at all. We haven't had a meeting about it," he said.
The Government Chief Whip, Mr Seamus Brennan, said he expected to meet Mr Lawlor this week to discuss the situation.
A Government source indicated that they hoped Mr Lawlor would step down before Thursday's meeting.
However, Mr Lawlor told The Irish Times last night that he was not aware that the meeting had been scheduled for this week. Asked what he planned to do in regard to it, he said the meeting was "not one of my priorities at the moment. We'll deal with it on Thursday. I will talk to the chairman, Michael Ahern, who is a good friend of mine, during the week about it."
A Progressive Democrats spokesman said yesterday that in the event of a vote their representative on the committee, Senator John Dardis, would support the motion.
The Government, with the support of Mr Lawlor and Mr Denis Foley, would have had a majority of one on the 19-member committee. However, Mr Dardis's indication that he would support the motion means that the balance is in the hands of independent Senator Joe O'Toole. Mr O'Toole could not be contacted last night.
A Government source said that Mr Lawlor is not a member of Fianna Fail, but occupied a Fianna Fail seat on the committee and would have been replaced.
Fine Gael's Mr Jimmy Deenihan, who tabled the motion, said if Mr Lawlor had not resigned before Thursday he "certainly hopes the committee will remove him".