Lest anybody forget, Lowry is the man who John Bruton rejected as a Fine Gael candidate ten years ago. His reasons were as valid then as now . . . Lowry accepted a �395,000 extension to his home courtesy of supermarket boss Ben Dunne.

He was forced to resign from cabinet over the matter, and was found to have evaded tax by the McCracken Tribunal. It's a non issue for the people of Tipperary North who have ensured he has topped the poll as an independent at every election since. But surely it should be an issue for Ahern?

His vote of confidence in Flynn is even more disconcerting. On Friday the Taoiseach said he was anxious to welcome her back into a prominent position in his new government. It seems that Flynn, who was forced out of Fianna Fail after losing her libel appeal against RTE, can expect a junior ministry at the earliest possible opportunity.

The matter of Flynn's appearance at the High Court this week over her failure to make any attempt to pay the 2.85m she owes RTE . . . and therefore Irish licence payers . . . is a pesky matter in the face of such an endorsement.

This is a woman who brazenly fought a general election campaign as interest on her debt accumulated at the rate of 12,000 a month. Most people would not be able to sleep at night in such circumstances.

At the eleventh hour . . . before her appearance tomorrow at the High Court in bankruptcy proceedings taken by RTE . . . she offered one-fifth of her Dail salary every year for the rest of her parliamentary career to meet the bill. And now she has instructed her solicitors to mount a constitutional challenge to the law stating that a bankrupt person cannot be a member of the Dail.

But then again this is a woman whose failed action against RTE was the longestrunning libel case in the history of the State. And, after she failed to prove she was libelled in broadcasts by Charlie Bird in 1998 who said as an employee of National Irish Bank she had helped some people to evade tax, she proceeded to the Supreme Court where she also lost.

She has twice been expelled from the Fianna Fail parliamentary party . . . in 1999 for voting against a motion asking her father Padraig Flynn to clarify matters in relation to donations he received. She was readmitted in 2000, but was forced out again when she lost her libel action against RTE in 2001.

Despite this colourful track record, Flynn was judged suitable to hold public office and selected as a Fianna Fail candidate in the 2002 General Election. She held her seat, but was expelled again in 2004 when she lost her Supreme Court appeal of the High Court case. And, lest we forget, the Supreme Court upheld the High Court finding that Flynn had encouraged her bank customers to evade tax.

This is the same person who the Taoiseach last week described as " a hugely competent capable person" and whom he says he looks forward to having in his government.

Be under no illusion, a vote for Michael Lowry or a vote for Beverley Flynn is an abdication of the voter's responsibility as a citizen of this country. Both have manifestly proven themselves to be unfit for public office. That the Taoiseach sees nothing wrong in aligning himself with these individuals, is not acceptable.

Unfortunately Fianna Fail seem to have interpreted the electorate's confidence in its efficient management of the economy as a licence to do anything it wants. This embrace of two individuals who have abused and disrespected the notion of integrity in public life is an insult to every other honest politician in the 30th Dail.