By Paddy Clancy

TAOISEACH (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern and Tanaiste(Deputy Leader) Michael McDowell are set to continue to lead their coalition government into the middle of next year despite a rift that threatened the administration.

The division emerged just days after McDowell said he accepted Ahern was “neither dishonest nor corrupt” and he was prepared to remain in power with him despite an admitted “error of judgment” by the taoiseach in accepting almost £8,000 sterling - $15,000 – from friends and business acquaintances in Manchester when he was finance minister in the 1990s.

Ahern said that money was a personal gift to help him through a private financial crisis when he was undergoing a marriage separation.

But days after the admission – and McDowell’s acceptance that it wasn’t an issue on which the government should fall – more details emerged about the Manchester friends.

Ahern revealed he bought his home in Drumcondra, Co. Dublin, from one of the Manchester group.

Although Ahern argued he paid market value for the house, McDowell was furious that the information hadn’t been revealed to him earlier.

As Opposition politicians demanded more details McDowell refused to take Thursday answers on behalf of the Taoiseach, a tradition of long-standing in the Dail(Parliament). He bluntly told Ahern to go and take the questions himself.

There was no further contact between the two men, the government’s principal ministers, throughout the following days.

There was little sign, however, that McDowell’s Progressive Democrats, minority partner in the coalition with Fianna Fail, were prepared to withdraw from government and force a general election despite opposition demands that they do so.

By Tuesday of this week it was clear behind-the-scenes efforts to get the government back on track were bearing fruit.

On Tuesday afternoon, Ahern again told the Dail it was an “error of judgment” for him to accept loans and gifts for personal purposes in the early 1990s.

He expanded on his apology to the Dail last week, which he described as unqualified and he announced that there would now be a change in the ethics law requiring office holders offered a gift from friends to consult the Standards in Public Office Commission.

The SPOC will have to consider if the gift is likely or not to compromise the recipient in the discharge of his or her duties. Failure to inform the SPOC or to go along with its opinions will be considered an offense.

Ahern and McDowell appeared together on the steps of Government Buildings to declare an end to the difficulties that had arisen between them.

McDowell told journalists that it was always wrong for office holders to accept gifts from strangers, but that the information about Ahern’s house had been leaked to damage the government, and it would be grotesque to reward the leaker by breaking up the coalition.

He said the future of the government was safe.