A FULL 19 days after his forced resignation, members of all parties - especially Fine Gael - are waiting to hear Michael Lowry explain why Dunnes Stores paid £208,000 to build an extension to his Tipperary home.

He has sought an unprecedented 40 minutes to make a personal, statement, carefully-timed to coincide with the Christmas closure of the Dail this afternoon. He cannot be subjected to a question-and-answer session afterwards.

Facing the fact that 76 per cent of voters believe the Lowry affair has damaged the Government, Fine Gael TDs fear the former minister's explanation could prolong the biggest ethical question to confront them in their term of office.

For this reason, senior Fine Gael colleagues pleaded with Mr Lowry' yesterday to shorten his statement and, as one key strategist put it: "Do mea culpa to the death and go home".

But colleagues who met him said he was adamant that he needed the time because his personal integrity, business reputation and political standing were at stake. He also wanted the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, to sit beside him while he delivered his statement.

Late last night there were more texts - and amendments to them - around Mr Lowry, than there are pages in Bunreacht na hEireann. He was surrounded throughout the day by ordinary accountants, tax accountants, solicitors and advisers. The Taoiseach's programme manager, Mr Sean Donlon, was put in charge.

Mr Lowry, who arguably got Fine Gael's biggest economic portfolio in the three-party Coalition, is compromised on three fronts as, he goes into the Dail today to give, his long-promised "accurate and proper account" of his relationship with Dunnes Stores.

Firstly, he has never denied, to this day, the substance of the story in the Irish Independent on Friday, November 29th, that Dunnes Stores picked up the £207,820 bill for restoring and extending his Georgian home in Holycross in, 1993.

He was chairman of the Fine Gael parliamentary party and national director of the party's fund-raising at the time.

His company, Streamline Enterprises Ltd, supplied refrigeration services to Dunnes Stores.

Secondly, he resigned his ministry the day after the story appeared, Saturday, November 30th, without offering a detailed explanation for the payments.

He said: "The arrangements which I and my company, Streamline Enterprises, entered into with Dunnes Stores were and are entirely legitimate.

"As part of these arrangements, credit facilities were made available by Dunnes from time to time, to be subsequently repaid from after tax income."

He said that to fully answer all the questions which had been, raised would involve the disclosure to competitors of information which would place his company at a serious disadvantage.

"Neither do I wish to embroil Dunnes Stores in what is, in reality, a political issue," he said.

Thirdly, he has offered some possible hostages to fortune in the unguarded remarks made, while he was "battered and bruised", on his return to north Tipperary on the first weekend of December.

The payment for the extension to his home, he said, was "an entirely legitimate and normal commercial agreement" that would "satisfy any accountant.

"I do not have any problem with the Revenue Commissioners. I will not have any problem with the Revenue Commissioners in the future, as long as my company is in business."

The Dail believes Mr Lowry is, making his statement only because the Fianna Fail leader, Mr Ahern, said last week that "the longer a satisfactory explanation is outstanding, the more the question arises as to whether Deputy Michael Lowry, former chairman of Fine Gael, is a fit person to be a member of this House".

A half-dozen Labour backbenchers called for an explanation. And the Taoiseach said that he would give one.

There are three simple questions, at a minimum, which Mr Lowry must answer today, and they don't require any tax accountant. Did he enter into a bonafide business arrangement with Ben Dunne? Was Mr Dunne paying him for goods and services rendered? And, did he, Mr Lowry, declare the payments to the Revenue Commissioners?

The Revenue Commissioners are now in possession of a full and unadulterated copy of the Price Waterhouse Report. They have set up a special task force to deal with the 1,500 payments contained in it.