Fine Gael has accused the Minister for Finance of lying to the Dail last week, claiming information was deliberately left out of a reply to a parliamentary question and instead leaked to the media in an attempt to damage Mr John Bruton.
The party's junior defence spokesman, Mr Billy Timmins, claimed yesterday the controversy was "as clear a case as has been seen in recent parliamentary history of a Minister lying to the Dail". Whoever was responsible for "deliberately deceiving the Dail" in the affair should not remain in office, he maintained.
However, Mr McCreevy has already told Mr Bruton that he had no knowledge of the affair, and that he has asked the Minister of State in his Department, Mr Martin Cullen, for a report on the matter. Mr Cullen is to report to Mr McCreevy today.
Mr Timmins said yesterday he accepted that Mr McCreevy played no personal part in what he called "the deliberate deception of the Dail". Whoever was responsible should not remain in office, he said.
The controversy arose over a reply given to Mr Timmins last week when he asked, in a written question to the Minister for Finance, whether the Minister or his Department had disposed of any assets or property worth more than £200,000 between 1987 and 1992 without going to public tender.
Mr Timmins received a reply last Wednesday stating that it had not yet been possible to assemble all the relevant information.
However, the following day a journalist rang Mr Timmins and told him information embarrassing to Mr Bruton had been discovered in the course of preparing the reply. This information had been left out of the previous day's reply.
This information related to an authorisation Mr Bruton had given as minister for finance in January 1997 agreeing the sale of a building in Dublin's Merrion Square to Irish Intercontinental Bank without putting it to tender. Mr Bruton authorised the sale on the advice of officials in the Department of Finance and the Office of Public Works.
Mr Bruton wrote to Mr McCreevy on Friday asking for an explanation of how this information was left out of the parliamentary reply and instead leaked to journalists. Mr McCreevy sent Mr Bruton a copy of an explanation of the matter prepared by the secretary-general of his Department, Mr Paddy Mullarkey.
This explained that both the Department of Finance and the Office of Public Works had information relevant to the reply, and that a decision had been taken to collate this information and issue a single reply.
While the OPW successfully completed the preparation of its input into the reply, the Department of Finance had not completed its contribution before the deadline for an answer to be prepared. A decision was then taken to hold on to the OPW part of the reply until the information from Finance was ready, and to issue a holding reply in the meantime saying that all the information had not yet been compiled.
However, the information prepared by the OPW, which included details of the sale of the Merrion Square building to Irish Intercontinental Bank, was then leaked to the media. Mr Mullarkey said he had had a "thorough investigation" carried out and was satisfied the Department of Finance did not leak any information in the matter.
Mr Cullen's report today to Mr McCreevy is expected to say he sent the OPW's input into the reply to the Department of Finance, and played no further role in the matter after that.
However, Mr Timmins insisted last night that information was available in the Department of Finance to answer his question fully.
"This available information was deliberately withheld from the Dail.
"I believe that the person who was responsible for deliberately deceiving the Dail should not remain in office because they are not worthy of the trust of the Dail and the Government has placed in them. Nor can one trust the truthfulness of any future parliamentary replies that might emanate from such a tainted source", he said.