The Department of Finance is confident that it will be told this Thursday that Mr Hugh O'Flaherty has been nominated as vice-president of the European Investment Bank. It understands that tomorrow is the deadline for the bank's board of directors to vote on Mr O'Flaherty's nomination by the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy.
The Department believes there is little danger of the directors turning Mr O'Flaherty down despite them asking for more time to consider him because of the disquiet among the Irish public.
If Mr O'Flaherty is nominated, his name will then go forward to the bank's board of governors, made up of the EU economic and finance ministers. It would be open to the board to accept or reject the nomination.
Last night a spokesman for the Department said Mr McCreevy had not been approached by anybody asking him to reconsider the Government's choice. According to a report in the Sunday Independent yesterday, the chief economist of the EIB, Prof Alfred Steiner, said there was a conversation last month between a member of the board of governors, on behalf of the bank, and Mr McCreevy, in relation to putting forward a second candidate. However, Mr McCreevy was not willing to do so.
Asked if an approach had been made to any other member of the Department of Finance who might have been dealing with this issue, the spokesman said: "As far as I am aware, it didn't happen with the Minister or at any level."
Speaking specifically about Mr Noel O'Gorman, second secretary-general, who represents Ireland on the bank's board of directors, he said he had been in contact with Mr O'Gorman and he was certain that no approach had been made to him.
Last night a spokesman for the Progressive Democrats said the party had no comment to make on the latest twist in the controversy. The Fine Gael spokesman on finance, Mr Michael Noonan, said the carefully worded denials from within the Department of Finance were not good enough.
"I am now calling on Charlie McCreevy himself to clarify the situation. It is clear that some form of approach was made by the EIB, as claimed publicly by its own chief economist, Prof Alfred Steiner. How precisely that approach was effected is a less important matter of detail," he said. The Labour Party has called on the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, to make a statement as to whether any EU member-state, EU finance minister or the EIB itself had expressed concerns to the Government, Mr McCreevy or the Department of Finance about Mr O'Flaherty's nomination.
"The longer this saga drags on, the more it damages Ireland's international reputation and standing within the European Union. The Minister for Finance, with characteristic stubbornness and arrogance, has chosen to ignore the verdict of public opinion . . . The decision to nominate Hugh O'Flaherty was a serious error from the very start which has been made worse by the arrogance of this Government," said Ms Liz McManus.