Willie O’Dea said this evening he took the decision to resign as minister for defence after the Taoiseach informed him the Green Party would no longer support the Government if he remained in office.
Speaking to the media for first time since his resignation, Mr O’Dea insisted he had acted in the interests of the country and to protect the stability of the Government.
Mr O'Dea denied that Mr Cowen had told him that he had to go but had simply pointed out that the Green Party would no longer support the government if he remained in office so he proffered his resignation which Mr Cowen accepted.
"I went to speak to the Toaiseach when it became clear that the Green Party would no longer support the government if I were to stay in government – I think it would have been disastrous if the government was to fall.
"We're in right in the middle of a very serious economic crisis and the government has a specific programme on the public finances and the banking situation and it would be absolutely in the interest of the country that the government survives.
"So in the interest of the country and to ensure the stability of the government and allow the government go on, I offered my resignation to the Taoiseach … I offered my resignation in writing and he wrote back to me accepting it."
Speaking outside South's Pub on O'Connell Street in Limerick this afternoon at an impromptu press conference, Mr O'Dea said that he felt no animosity towards the Green Party and predicted the coalition government would survive the current crisis.
"I have no animosity towards anybody. Politics is politics, it's a tough game – one day you're up, one day you're down, people do things, people make decisions that they have to answer for, bearing animosity is a very arid unproductive sort of attitude.
"I don't think it will have any impact on coalition agreement between the Greens and Fianna Fail. If I had stayed in government it would have made the continuation of government impossible, that was what I was told.
"Obviously the fact that I have left government has enabled the government to forward and continue with their programme to rectify the economy and that's in the interest of the country."
Green Party leader John Gormley earlier rejected claims his party’s relationship with Fianna Fáil has been soured by the controversy surrounding Mr O’Dea’s resignation.
Speaking at an event in University College Cork today, Mr Gormley said he had held a positive meeting with Fianna Fáil and insisted the Coalition was committed to its programme of government.
Yesterday, both parties appeared at odds over the circumstances of Mr O’Dea’s departure amid mounting speculation over the future of the Coalition.
Fianna Fáil had maintained Mr O’Dea’s decision to resign was made during a phone conversation with the Taoiseach shortly after lunchtime yesterday, and that he resigned of his own volition.
Green Party sources insisted, however, the resignation had come about when Mr Gormley told the Taoiseach in mid-afternoon that the party could no longer support Mr O’Dea.
Mr Gormley insisted his party remained committed to the Government, saying “we have a renewed programme for government which is comprehensive in nature and which will get this country back up and working again”.
He refused to speculate on whether his party would have left the Coalition had Mr O’Dea not resigned.
Asked if his party had erred in supporting a Dáil confidence motion in the Limerick minister, Mr Gormley said: “No, I think the fact is there was a situation that had arisen, there was an opposition motion which had to be countered by a government motion, and we were left with no alternative frankly because you can’t vote for an Opposition motion.”
Green Party chairman Dan Boyle also declared his party's commitment to Government but said there was a need to understand that different political cultures existed within it.
"Our intention is to remain in Government to fulfil the programme for Government . . . and we have already done so in very difficult circumstances, particularly economic where we've had to make very unpopular but necessary decisions to right this economy for policies that we weren't responsible for in the first instance."
"We have different political cultures, and for a Government to work, it has to be understood that those cultures do exist, and that you have to accommodate those differences," Mr Boyle said.
Mr Cowen said today that Mr O’Dea had indicated to him that he was anxious not to become the focus of attention and distract from the role of government.
Mr Cowen said he had been aware Mr O’Dea was considering resigning as a result of the controversy. He declined to be drawn on speculation that Mr O’Dea’s departure may prompt a major cabinet reshuffle.
Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy said earlier claims that a member of the force supplied information to the former minister for defence Willie O'Dea about Sinn Féin councillor Maurice Quinlivan will be examined.
However, Commissioner Murphy, who was speaking at the Garda Reserve graduation ceremony in Templemore, Co Tipperary, stopped short of confirming that gardaí would hold a full investigation into the issue.
Mr O’Dea resigned last night as minister as a result of the controversy over his swearing of a false affidavit in a High Court case.
Also speaking at the ceremony, Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern said he would not be able to direct gardaí to conduct a criminal investigation into any aspect of the controversy as it would be interpreted “as interfering with policing”.
Mr Ahern said he did not believe Fianna Fáil had been arrogant in its initial support for Mr O'Dea. "If I was guilty of one thing, it was being loyal," he told The Irish Times.
“Mr O’Dea was regarded as a hard-working member of the Cabinet, particularly in terms of the challenges facing Limerick, and that input would be missed,” Mr Ahern said.
Government Chief Whip Pat Carey earlier said the emergence of a combination of new factors yesterday meant the motion of confidence in Willie O’Dea passed in the Dáil on Wednesday could no longer stand.
Speaking on Morning Ireland, Mr Carey said the Government had supported Mr O'Dea during the confidence motion "on the basis of the information that was made to us at the time".
He said a subsequent interview given by Mr O’Dea to RTÉ’s News at One that mentioned Garda involvement in his false affidavit had led to the minister resigning of his own volition.
“One of the issues that certainly raised concerns was the involvement of the gardaí. It was a combination of those issues which brought about the resignation on his own volition,” Mr Carey said.
On the same programme, Labour’s Pat Rabbitte suggested a general election now seemed more likely as the trust between the two Coalition parties appeared to have broken down.
“To think that those six deputies from the Green Party were bounced into a confidence vote, they didn’t even know that it was going to happen on the day, that they ended up voting for a minister that clearly they didn’t believe in - that kind of sore festers,” he said.
Mr O’Dea’s resignation came after rowdy exchanges in the Dáil, the tabling by Fine Gael in the Seanad of a motion of no confidence and near-defeat of the Government in a Dáil vote. Eight Fianna Fáil TDs were absent for the vote which resulted in a tie and the Government was only saved by the casting vote of Ceann Comhairle Séamus Kirk.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said Mr O’Dea’s resignation was an inevitable consequence of his false affidavit. “Despite knowing the full facts, the Taoiseach and his Fianna Fáil and Green ministers queued up just yesterday to vehemently support Deputy O’Dea, to assert that he had done nothing wrong other than a simple human mistake, and to vote complete confidence in him.”