Fine Gael is expected to move the writ for the Cork South Central by-election next week when the Dail resumes after the summer recess.
The vacancy was caused by the sudden death last March of Mr Hugh Coveney, whose son, Simon, will contest the by-election. Though the Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, yesterday refused to say when the writ would be moved, it is understood the party intends to put the process in motion shortly after the House returns next week.
Mr Coveney addressed the conclusion of a special meeting of the parliamentary party in Wicklow yesterday, called to examine its strategy in the new Dail term.
The two-day event approved four major policy documents on education disadvantage, housing, young people in farming and social exclusion.
During the meeting, Mr Bruton highlighted "current chaos" in the health services, the inability of young people to buy their own homes, worsening traffic and transport problems and the dropout rate of young people as key failures in Government policy.
Later he told a press conference that Fine Gael would be "extremely aggressive" in pursuing the Government over these problems in the new Dail term.
Mr Bruton said the housing crisis was severely disrupting family life as people found themselves travelling miles to work since they could not afford homes in Dublin. Lengthening hospital waiting lists, too, were causing more and more distress.
Meanwhile, 15 per cent to 20 per cent of Irish people were "being failed by our education system". Pre-school and remedial education were not being given the necessary resources and, in a future government, Fine Gael would make education the chief recipient of public spending. Within that, primary education would receive priority treatment.
In his keynote address, he said: "If corruption occurs, that compromises our democratic institutions. That is why Garret FitzGerald, as leader of Fine Gael, was right to warn of the risks of the Haughey era, before that era began, in 1979. That is why Fine Gael today wants tough anti-corruption legislation that will shift the burden of proof, requiring anyone in a public position in receipt of services or payments from potential beneficiaries of his or her decision, to show that there was no ulterior motive, at the time or afterwards," he said.
Any politician "on the take" had no "right to silence", he added.
Fine Gael's education spokesman, Mr Richard Bruton, accused the Department of Education of not having any coherent strategy in place to counter educational disadvantage.