MINISTER FOR Health Mary Harney has refused to speculate on what the implications for her political future are if the Progressive Democrats are wound up next weekend.
Speaking to reporters in Dublin yesterday Ms Harney would not even say if she foresaw herself continuing as Minister for Health if the party, which she helped to found, ceases to exist.
"I'm not going to speculate on what implications there are," she said. "I'm not going any further than the meeting of next Saturday."
Asked about weekend reports that she would resign from the PDs if the party membership voted to keep the party alive, against her wishes, at a special conference in Mullingar next Saturday, she said: "Well, nobody spoke to me about that matter."
She added: "Can I say, next Saturday will be the first opportunity that I and my colleagues in the parliamentary party will have to address the wider party membership in relation to the future sustainability of the party and I'm looking forward to that meeting.
"I understand that there will be a good turnout from right around the country and I think after that meeting makes a determination, I will then comment in public about the various issues that arise but, in advance of that, I'm not going to make any public comment because I don't think it would be helpful."
She said she was instrumental in the foundation of the party almost 23 years ago and "clearly I would love to think that the Progressive Democrats have a viable political future.
"In order to have a viable political future, one has to have the capacity to elect people to the national parliament, particularly to the Dáil, and clearly in last year's general election we did not have that capacity."
Regardless of what happened on Saturday, she said the PDs would not immediately go out of existence.
"Clearly, regardless of what happens at the meeting, it will simply be the beginning of a process because there are huge legal issues that have to be addressed in terms of the cessation of a political party and they would have to be addressed over the coming months, certainly over the coming weeks," she said.
Saturday's meeting, Ms Harney continued, would be an emotional one attended by people broadly representative of the wider party membership.
The key figure at the meeting, she argued, would by party leader Ciarán Cannon, who has already conceded that the PDs cannot survive. She said the parliamentary party would also have a crucial role to play.
"But there are other very influential members of the party that will be there next Saturday as well. I think their opinion, people like John Dardis, for example, I think people like that are widely respected within the party.
"They are individuals of enormous political experience and stature so I don't think its simply down to whatever speech I might make or whatever views I express.
"I think all of us have a role to play in outlining the facts to the party membership."
There has been some speculation that the party's grassroots may decide against the wishes of the parliamentary party and the majority of its councillors that the party has no viable future. Some members, particularly in the Limerick East constituency of the party's former leader, Des O'Malley, have argued that the party should remain in existence.