A plan to give Government approval to reforms to the short term letting sector was dropped from the Cabinet agenda at the last minute.
It is understood the plan to progress the landmark reforms had to be paused for a week after disagreement between the Department of Housing and the Department of Enterprise over what was due to be a plan jointly presented by their respective ministers, James Browne and Peter Burke.
One Government source claimed the Cabinet memo - the document that outlines and explains the rationale for any decision the Government is being asked to take - as presented was incomplete and was missing a “key decision point” to include necessary legislative amendments.
They also said there were changes made to the memo, which was brought before Government by Mr Burke, in the run-in to the Cabinet meeting.
This would have meant that a second amending memo would have to be taken to Government the following week, this source said. A second Government figure said there was disagreement as the plan had been to present it jointly by the ministers but that it was taken to Cabinet by Mr Burke alone.
A Fine Gael source said the memo had been circulated before Cabinet and had been the subject of comments by Fianna Fáil ministers, although not from the Department of Housing, and that the proposal was considered at the Cabinet committee on housing last week.
It is understood the Cabinet intends to revisit the reforms next week.
A source familiar with the discussions said that Mr Browne felt there were more items that needed to be added as the memo did not include items he believed would be in it.
Meanwhile, Mr Burke said he wasn’t open to changing it on the day.
A source briefed on the Cabinet discussions said Mr Burke had sought a meeting with Mr Browne and that his department were seeking to meet with officials in housing.
The source said Mr Burke did not receive a response - although this was disputed by a source with knowledge of Mr Browne’s thinking.
It was agreed to defer consideration of the memo for a week.
Speaking on Tuesday afternoon, Mr Browne confirmed the memo was discussed at Cabinet.
“There are a few adjustments that need to be made to it, a little bit of fine tuning that’ll be carried out over the next week, and then it will go to Cabinet. I fully expect it to pass by Cabinet next week,” Mr Browne said.
Asked what this “fine tuning” involved, Mr Browne said there were “a couple of essential legal pieces” that would have required an adjustment if it had gone to Cabinet.
“It won’t change the substance of the legislation or the memo itself,” Mr Browne said.
