The Labour Party was sharply criticised by the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Mr O'Donoghue, during the resumed Budget debate.

He claimed the "annihilation" of tradition Labour was complete.

"President de Rossa, leader Rabbitte and deputy leader McManus, all enthusiastic members of Sinn Féin, the Workers' Party, and all that it stood for, now reign supreme. They would have us believe that by changing their name they have gone away. They haven't gone away, you know.

"Windscale did not become any less noxious or objectionable when it changed its name to Sellafield, and continued its activities as before. The brand relaunch of Sinn Féin, the Workers' Party, as infiltrated Labour does not make their policies or their record any more acceptable or any less disgraceful."

Mr O'Donoghue said those "who stood shoulder to shoulder in vociferous solidarity with the discredited economic policies of the former Soviet Union now choose to lecture the most successful Minister for Finance of his generation on economic propriety" .

He added that the fate of the regimes which inspired Mr Rabbitte until recently stood in stark contrast to the modern economic fate of the State, brought about as it had been by the type of policy which infiltrated Labour, under its new leader, despised.

"The modern wealth of this country is built on our success in attracting and fostering entrepreneurial initiative. Deputy Rabbitte and the current leadership of Sinn Féin-the infiltrated Labour party spent most of their political life advocating the confiscation by the State of that class of industry."

Mr Seamus Healy (Independent, Tipperary South) said the Budget was ideologically-driven and "Thatcherism at its best" .

The Government, he added, was the most right-wing in the history of the State.