The Cabinet will hold its last meeting before the summer break today in Avondale, Co Wicklow, the home of the former leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, Charles Stewart Parnell.
The meeting comes after the latest Sunday Business Post/Red C monthly opinion poll showed support for Fianna Fáil up by 1 per cent, with Progressive Democrat support down to just 2 per cent, according to the poll.
However, Minister for Defence Willie O'Dea downplayed the significance of the poll. "The situation doesn't seem to have changed appreciably since a month ago. The combined Government parties are at the same level we were a month ago. The combined Opposition, even if you throw in the Greens, have gone up 1 per cent. That doesn't signify any movement," he said.
The decision to hold Cabinet meetings outside Dublin is now a tradition. "It is particularly appropriate in the year when Wicklow is holding its 400th anniversary celebrations," said a spokeswoman.
However, today's meeting is described as largely routine.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, Tánaiste Mary Harney and the Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, will be briefed later by those organising the anniversary celebrations.
Mr O'Dea rejected a Sunday Independent report that the Taoiseach had decided to buy out the M50 toll bridge, owned by National Toll Roads, which produces the longest traffic jam in the State on a daily basis.
"The Government is not going to buy the election," he said. "The electorate has got too sophisticated to be bought with their own money any more. The Government has been managing the economy quite prudently. We will continue to do that."
Fine Gael TD Olivia Mitchell said that the report, if confirmed, was welcome. "However, a sceptical public will wonder why they have had to endure 10 years of ever-increasing misery and why this buy-out could not have been done before now, despite the almost daily calls to do so," Ms Mitchell said.
"With today's poll results showing an increasing trend of disillusionment by the public with Fianna Fáil and the PDs, it is no surprise that the Government intends to try and pull many rabbits out of the hat before the next general election."
She added: "Frustrated motorists will be further incensed by the Government's inexplicable decision to do a further deal with National Toll Roads . . . to build a second bridge, as inevitably this will dramatically increase the cost of buying back the bridge and its projected income over the next 14 years."
