The Taoiseach said on RTE's This Week programme yesterday that he has taken a "dim" view of the controversy surrounding the Mayo Fianna Fail TD, Ms Beverley Cooper-Flynn.
Mr Ahern said officers of the Fianna Fail parliamentary party would be speaking to Ms Cooper-Flynn shortly. The Taoiseach was speaking during a lengthy interview with Gerald Barry.
He was asked if somebody who had urged people to break the law, to evade tax payments, who "cocks her snook" at a politically-agreed tax amnesty, should be a member of the Fianna Fail parliamentary party.
Mr Ahern replied: "I made it very clear the day the judgment came out that tax evasion is wrong, encouraging others to engage in tax evasion is equally wrong, and everybody, I think, is aware of that. We take a very dim view of this particular case, and we have stated that.
"We have our rules and our procedures which will have to be followed. Deputy Beverley Cooper-Flynn asked to take a break and some time off. She is away until this weekend. She also wanted to wait for her legal advice, once the issue of costs had been determined. That has now been done.
"She also told us she would not wait long after that to make up her mind on an appeal. I can tell you that the party takes a very dim view . . . "
Asked if he had taken soundings within the party, Mr Ahern said it was not necessary. "I think the party, in the first 24 hours, said its part. I think people are extremely annoyed about this and believe that tax evasion is wrong and encouraging others to do it is equally wrong."
Mr Ahern said it was "a spurious argument" to say the offences had taken place before she was elected to the Dail. "The fact is that wrongdoing is wrong, whatever way it happens. People have to understand the laws and rules, many of which I put into legislation myself.
"We have an issue to deal with. The party has rules and procedures. We are the only party with rules and procedures, and these issues are going to have to be dealt with. I spoke to the Fianna Fail parliamentary officers on Friday, and they will be speaking to the deputy as soon as she returns home."
Asked if there was a future for Ms Cooper-Flynn in the Fianna Fail parliamentary par ty, Mr Ahern said: "You will appreciate that if the party has rules, it has to follow those rules. I can say this: we take a dim and a very serious view of all of this."
Mr Ahern was reminded of the controversies which surrounded the former minister and deputy, Mr Ray Burke, and the TDs Mr Denis Foley, Mr John Ellis and Mr Liam Lawlor.
"Does it not show," the Taoiseach replied, "that we are very serious about sorting out things? . . . We were serious about tidying up politics and we have led and taken a very tough line on it. This will be for the betterment of politics in the future . . .
"Sometimes we are criticised because we do not act in a barbaric way and put heads on plates and hang people at the guillotine before they have their breakfasts. But we are a civilised, democratic party. We are not going to do it for the next headline so that it has another bit of a story.
"But we are tidying and cleaning it up, and we are doing it in a way that I think it is for the good of politics in the long run. And I think we have, slowly but surely, done that. It has set tough examples of how things are going to be in political life in the future, not to mind clearing up the ethics issues and the funding issues."
Mr Ahern said he would be telling party delegates at its ard fheis in October that the Government was in the last nine months of its term and that it would run until summer 2002.
