MR Michael Lowry is fighting an uphill battle to retain his ministry as the Government is presented with the most potentially serious ethical question of its term in office.
He has created grave disquiet in the ranks of the three coalition parties with his refusal, over 24 hours, to deny allegations that Dunnes Stores paid the £207,820 bill for an extension to his Georgian home on 35 acres at Glenreigh, Holycross, Co Tipperary, in 1993.
Mr Lowry, who was chairman of the Fine Gael parliamentary party and director of party fund-raising at that time, was a director and majority shareholder of Streamline Enterprises Ltd, a company which supplies refrigeration services to Dunnes Stores.
He is expected to come under sustained political pressure to explain the circumstances surrounding the allegations today, because of the difficulties they are creating for the Government.
As his coalition colleagues were left floundering without answers to the questions raised by the allegations, a defiant Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications indicated last night in north Tipperary that he had no intention of resigning. He said: "I'm very confident that, when the details are presented, everyone will be satisfied."
He said the matter had nothing to do with his responsibility as a minister. The issues predated his appointment.
He would give "an accurate and proper account" of the position when information he had requested from advisers to his company was available. "I have absolutely no intention of being bounced into a decision," he added.
In his only public comment, the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, said: "Obviously, private business or personal matters affecting what they do previous to their ministerial career are in a different category."
Mr Lowry had confirmed to him, in a brief conversation, that the article was concerned with things that had happened well before he became a minister. "And ministers are responsible for things that they do as ministers or while they are ministers," he stated.
As the day dragged on, not a single Government minister or backbencher privately believed that Mr Lowry could hold his Cabinet position, but there was no rush to call publicly for his head.
A Fianna Fail spokesman said the party was waiting for his substantive reply to the questions raised.
The spokesman was shocked by the attempts of the Taoiseach and the Minister to draw a distinction between the standards to be applied to a member of the Government and a member of the Opposition.
The PD spokesman, Mr Bobby Molloy, said it was astonishing that a whole day had gone by without an explanation.
As Labour and Democratic Left sources tried to isolate the Lowry controversy as a Fine Gael problem, it was confirmed yesterday that the Minister did not manage to speak to the Taoiseach when he knew the story was breaking on Thursday night.
Arriving back from an EU meeting in Brussels at 10 p.m. on Thursday, Mr Lowry informed the other coalition leaders, Mr Spring and Mr De Rossa, by telephone of the imminent publication of the allegations. He did not speak to Mr Bruton until noon yesterday.
The main questions being raised by his Government colleagues are: what obligations to the State did Mr Lowry have arising from the alleged events and did they have Revenue implications?
Last night, Mr Lowry said he would make a statement on the affair later today.
