Senior PD figures including McDowell, Mary Harney and Liz O'Donnell were last night examining their options, with strong indications that the party would withdraw from the government just 19 days ahead of the general election. Reliable sources indicated last night that McDowell felt he had been "badly misled" by Ahern last autumn following a briefing the Taoiseach gave the PD leader about his dealings with the Mahon tribunal.

McDowell is understood to have received information last week from journalist Jody Corcoran. The material is believed to include transcripts of recent exchanges between Ahern and tribunal lawyers. These exchanges focus on Ahern's personal finances in the mid1990s, when he was in receipt of several significant cash donations and when his bank accounts showed numerous foreign exchange transactions.

McDowell read the information on Friday before he told reporters that he needed time to "reflect" on the new material. He described the situation as "serious" yesterday before calling party colleagues away from their election canvass to agree a course of action.

When asked yesterday about McDowell's comments that he needed to reflect on this new material, Ahern said the Tanaiste "needed to do what he needed to do".

It's understood a section of the PD parliamentary party, including Tom Parlon, was resistant to pulling out of government. "The feeling now is that it's too late to do that. You would be playing into the hands of the opposition, " one well-placed source said. However, McDowell, Harney and O'Donnell were adamant it was the only course available. There were indications last night that a special meeting of the PD national executive would be called later today to ratify the decision to withdraw.

New PD Senator Colm O'Gorman admitted there were strains in the coalition.

"Trust is central to any relationship in government. If the Taoiseach was not fully frank with the Tanaiste, that's very serious, indeed, " O'Gorman said.

Dun Laoghaire TD Fiona O'Malley said last night that "you would question the wisdom of forming a new government [with Bertie Ahern at the helm] with all of this hovering around. That's what's most important. The [current] government has run its course, but it's for Fianna Fail to deal with this in the context of forming a new government".

Fianna Fail last night seemed resigned to losing their longtime coalition partner. "Nobody is sure what is upsetting them the most, but it looks like they are going to pull the plug, " a party figure said.

The main opposition parties were reluctant to be drawn into becoming involved in the government crisis. One Fine Gael source speculated that recent poor opinion poll results were a motivation for the PD decision.

Fianna Fail up two points in latest poll

SUPPORT for Fianna Fail has increased in a new opinion poll published today, reversing four months of decline for the party in a Red C tracking poll series.

The latest research shows Fianna Fail at 37%, an increase of two percentage points in the last three weeks. Fine Gael support is down one point to 26%, while Labour has increased by a similar amount to 12%.

The results for the Sunday Business Post poll indicate that recent upward movement in support for Fine Gael has halted.

But Fianna Fail's support is still below the 39% received by the party in the 2002 general election, which would indicate that Bertie Ahern's party faces seat losses in the 24 May vote.

Worryingly for Fianna Fail, the research work was undertaken early last week, prior to the main focus on the Taoiseach's personal "nances and Fianna Fail's u-turn on reducing stamp duty. Support for the PDs declined by one percentage point, leaving the party on a mere two per cent.