A senior Government minister today called for a sense of perspective in the controversy surrounding Bertie Ahern's admission that he accepted payments from businessmen while he was minister for finance.
At the insistence of Opposition leaders, Mr Ahern is being forced to make a statement on the affair in the Dail parliament on Tuesday afternoon.
But Minister for Foreign Affairs Dermot Ahern said today: "We have to have a sense of proportionality in relation to this.
"Are we going to throw out a Taoiseach who was the best labour minister in the history of this state? Are we going to throw out the Taoiseach who brought in the Belfast Agreement, with the aid of others?
"He is head and shoulders over any other leader in the EU," he told RTE Radio.
He added: "There is nobody in Leinster House to hold a candle to the Taoiseach in relation to being leader of the country."
The Dundalk TD reiterated that Mr Ahern was in financial difficulties at the time due to his separation with his wife. It wasn't right to retrospectively apply current laws on ethics and taxation to past events, he said.
Tánaiste Michael McDowell said last night he would continue in Government if Mr Ahern can give the Dáil a credible and convincing account of how he came to accept the payments.
"What I am saying is that a person in his position has to be accountable in the right way to Dáil Éireann. Decent standards have to be observed and people have to be accountable. I believe and hope that he will account, warts and all, to the Dáil on Tuesday. I have the feeling that we have to act proportionately on this," Mr McDowell told The Irish Times last night.
He said: "I strongly believe that Bertie Ahern is an honest, decent man and I have never seen any evidence of corruption. As far as I am concerned all of these things fall short of what we could consider acceptable but what the Irish people have to decide is whether they want the Government to break up and a person who achieved huge things for Ireland to bow out on this."
Mr McDowell said Mr Ahern had been one of Ireland's most successful taoisigh and he wanted to be reasonable and proportionate while adhering to reasonable standards.
Minister for Finance Brian Cowen yesterday staunchly defended Mr Ahern over the Manchester payment - £8,000 from a group of businessmen who the Taoiseach provided after dinner speeches to.
Speaking on the issue for the first time, the Mr Cowen argued, at times heatedly, with Fine Gael's Richard Bruton on RTÉ radio.
Mr Cowen said the Taoiseach had volunteered the information to the tribunal, in an RTÉ interview and provided answers in the Dáil. He also spoke to the media in Cavan.
"To be honest with you, by trying to deal with these matters on an hourly and daily basis, with various different questions and everything being asked, leads to more comment rather than people just dealing with it and closing it up," the Minister said.
"This man, the Taoiseach of this country, when asked, put all of this matter into the tribunal proceedings as he was requested to do on the basis that they would remain confidential."
Asked if the Taoiseach should step aside and be replaced by Mr Cowen as leader of Fianna Fáil, the Minister said: "Look, the Taoiseach is our Taoiseach, he's the president of our party. He enjoys the full support of our party and everyone in this organisation because we know him and we believe him and we believe in his credibility."