TAOISEACH (Prime Minister) Bertie Ahern desperately tried this week to ignore the latest escalation of the controversy surrounding his personal finances but was stung into accusing main opposition leader Enda Kenny of telling "a barefaced lie."Ahern, who warned reporters accompanying him on a six-day visit to South Africa that he would not deal with questions on a two-pronged attack on him by Kenny and Labor Party leader Eamon Gilmore, changed his mind and addressed the issue during his first press conference in Cape Town.Kenny and Gilmore had demanded Ahern's resignation just hours before he boarded the plane for Africa. Aides insisted Ahern would not reply to the demand as he did not wish to divert attention from the purpose of his trip at the head of one of the largest Irish trade and goodwill missions ever to visit Africa.But a furious Ahern decided he couldn't remain silent over taunts about his tax affairs. He said it was a "barefaced lie" for Kenny to say that he had not paid his tax bill. He said Kenny knew that.Kenny, who responded that he was sticking by his claim, launched his fiercest attack on Ahern since he became leader of Fine Gael almost six years ago.In a 1,500-word statement, Kenny said that if Ahern did not step down voluntarily then his deputy Brian Cowen should take action and force him out. Kenny claimed Ahern's unacceptable explanations of the sources of almost $446,000 which had passed through personal accounts or accounts held on his behalf had diminished his credibility.Kenny even compared Ahern's "fantasy" evidence to the tribunal with a complicated John le Carre plot."John le Carre himself couldn't produce a documentary of coincidences like this. In my view the taoiseach could clear all this up in 30 minutes if he went into the tribunal and answered the questions as he knows he can answer them," Kenny said.Kenny added that with another lengthy examination of Ahern yet to come at the tribunal he had reached a crossroads."He has a clear choice. He can maintain his convoluted reconstructions, his selective memory, his reinterpretation of what the English language means."If he takes this path he condemns the Irish people to further months of revelation, claim and counter claim. He erodes further the reputation and authority of the office of taoiseach."He added that the nation was now "consumed" with the financial affairs of a leader who was soon to represent Ireland with an address to a joint session of Congress in the U.S., a leader to whom anybody could stand up and say, "Yes sir, but you haven't got a tax certificate!"Labor's Gilmore claimed in his resignation call that if Ahern doesn't go voluntarily he will eventually be pushed by members of his own party."Within Fianna Fail, the one thing that is certain is that when the day comes when Mr. Ahern's own colleagues feel that he is a liability to the party they will move to shaft him, just as Fianna Fail shafted Albert Reynolds and Charles Haughey and Jack Lynch."A week before the attacks were stepped up, Ahern defended his handling of his tax affairs and criticized the leaking of details about them to the media. He said it would be inappropriate for him to discuss the details "with anybody other than the Revenue Commissioners."The dispute over Ahern's taxes centers on payments due on what he himself has called "dig-outs" from friends when he was in personal financial difficulties in 1993 and 1994. He has yet to be given a tax clearance certificate due to continuing questions over the dig-outs.He himself has said he is confident he will in due course be issued with a tax clearance certificate.Cabinet ministers have continued to defend Ahern. Cowen, in response to Kenny's suggestion that he should lead a push against the taoiseach, said he wasn't going to be lectured to by the Fine Gael leader.Justice Minister Brian Lenihan accused Kenny of editing the tribunal evidence to suit his own purposes.