Political hostilities between the Taoiseach and the leader of the Opposition intensified yesterday as Bertie Ahern's exchanges with Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny over his personal finances grew increasingly bitter.
The Taoiseach told reporters in Cape Town that Mr Kenny had knowingly told "a bare-faced lie" on the issue of his personal taxes.
"He knows he's telling a bare-faced lie and he is. I have honoured my tax compliance and he's just wrong and he knows he's wrong," Mr Ahern said.
In response, Mr Kenny said it was too serious a matter for "name-calling".
". . .I have no intention of descending to his level of name-calling.
"This is much too serious a matter, when the Taoiseach of our country is unable to produce a tax clearance certificate and be compliant with the Revenue Commissioners."
The issue is to be discussed at the Fine Gael frontbench meeting in Leinster House tomorrow morning.
Senior party sources said the meeting would again discuss the possibility of making a formal complaint about the Taoiseach to the Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo) but there were mixed views as to whether the front bench would proceed with what some see as a high-risk initiative.
In the event that Sipo did not uphold a complaint against Mr Ahern, Fine Gael could be politically embarrassed but a failure to proceed with a complaint, on the other hand, could leave the party open to a charge of losing its nerve on the issue.
When asked why Fine Gael had not so far made a complaint against the Taoiseach to the commission, Mr Kenny said yesterday: "That is something that Fine Gael may well give consideration to."
Asked if Fine Gael feared that a complaint to Sipo would not be upheld and would therefore rebound on them, the Fine Gael leader said: "I don't want to comment on that."
Senior figures in Fine Gael could hardly conceal their delight that the Taoiseach had made what was seen by them as an intemperately worded attack on Mr Kenny.
The main Opposition party hastily convened a news conference on the plinth outside Leinster House yesterday afternoon.
Flanked by members of the front bench, Mr Kenny said "the leader of the country" was unable to secure a certificate of tax compliance from the Revenue Commissioners.
The Fine Gael leader told reporters that, when it came to paying taxes, "it seems to me as if there is one law for Bertie Ahern and another law for the rest of the people." Commenting on the fact that Mr Ahern's spokesman had initially indicated the Taoiseach would make no comment whatsoever on his financial affairs during his African trip, Mr Kenny said this, "seemed to be a form of censorship on the press which would be unprecedented".
Fianna Fáil sources were dismissive of Mr Kenny's efforts and refused to make any further comment, arguing that the Fine Gael leader had not said anything new since his lengthy statement issued last Saturday morning.
Labour leader Eamon Gilmore told The Irish Times that the Taoiseach was "getting a lot more excitable and almost hysterical" in his responses on the tax issue.
"When Opposition leaders ask him questions about it he accuses us of lying; when the press attempt to ask him questions about it, he clams up."
Sinn Féin's Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin took a different approach on the issue. "Whilst these matters are indeed serious, they are minuscule in comparison to the deep inequality in Irish society Bertie Ahern has fostered since 1997," he said in a statement.
In the course of his Cape Town remarks, the Taoiseach also referred to the health condition of his friend and political colleague, the chairman of Dublin Port, Joe Burke. "Joe is not well. He's ill since Christmas and he's quite ill and I think will remain quite critical for a while," the Taoiseach told reporters.