A former special adviser to the Taoiseach would have acted inappropriately if he had made telephone calls to Fianna Fáil Fingal county councillors urging them to back a 1998 rezoning decision, a spokesman for Mr Ahern has said.
Earlier this week it was claimed that Mr Paddy Duffy, who quit Mr Ahern's service three years ago, called some councillors from the Taoiseach's office in May 1998 to ask them to vote in favour of rezoning the Santry Demesne for a €450 million property development.
Last night Mr Ahern's spokesman said: "It is outside the duty of any special adviser in the Taoiseach's office to become involved in lobbying, or influencing the decision of any local authority in the absence of an explicit instruction from the Taoiseach relating to some overriding public interest.
"Any special action that may have been taken by Mr Duffy on his own personal initiative for whatever motive and even in the face of what appears to have been good cause would have been in the Taoiseach's view inappropriate for a special adviser."
The Taoiseach, he said, believed that anyone with knowledge of the telephone calls would be "duty-bound" to bring the matter to the attention of the Flood tribunal if they believed there was anything improper about them.
However, an inquiry would not be instigated about the matter within the Taoiseach's office, nor would the matter be referred to the Standards in Public Offices Commission.
The rezoning proposal was supported at the time, with some minor variations, by the county manager and was eventually backed by councillors from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour.
Mr Duffy left the Taoiseach's office in 1998 once it emerged that he was listed as a director of a public affairs company.
