THE DÁIL was briefly suspended yesterday amid bitter and personalised exchanges between Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern and Labour spokesman Pat Rabbitte in a row about payments to the new board of the Equality Authority and allegations against the Department of Justice secretary general.

When the Minister highlighted public relations and consultancy spending by the authority in 2007 and listed "validly, how savings could be made", Mr Rabbitte said that if he was so concerned about savings, then why was it the case that members of the new board of the authority were now paid €10,000 each while the previous board worked "free, gratis and for nothing" down the years.

He also spoke of the allegations referred by the authority to the Garda that the secretary general of the Department of Justice had breached employment equality Acts when he was head of the prison service, and asked the Minister to assure the House that this had nothing to do with the "forcing out" of the chief executive of the Equality Authority, Niall Crowley. Mr Crowley resigned in the wake of the 42 per cent cut in the authority's budget.

Mr Ahern accused the Labour TD of adding to a "nasty" and "despicable" leak "against a good public servant", while Mr Rabbitte said the Minister was "a petty little man".

The Minister said the Leas Cheann Comhairle Brendan Howlin should intervene to ask Mr Rabbitte "to withdraw those remarks about a good public official". The Opposition TD claimed the Minister was not answering the questions.

At one stage during question time the exchanges were so heated the Leas Cheann Comhairle warned the Minister that if he did not resume his seat he would have to leave the House, to which Mr Ahern replied, "No I won't".

There was a brief respite when the next question was called but the row erupted again when Mr Ahern said, "I think what happened here today was a disgrace", and deputy Rabbitte was "a disgrace, trying to denigrate a good public servant". Mr Rabbitte replied that the Minister was a disgrace and was "trying to wrap the secretary general around himself".

The House was then suspended for 10 minutes.

During question time Mr Rabbitte had asked about the controversy surrounding the authority and the chief executive's resignation. Mr Ahern said, "This Government has an absolute commitment to the principles of equality and the elimination of discrimination", and a "commitment to securing a viable future for that agency".

Deputy Rabbitte claimed, however, that it was "hypocritical of the Minister in the extreme to trot out some mealy-mouthed platitudes here about his commitment to equality when he has driven the chief executive out of the equality authority and broken up the agency, effectively".

The Minister said he took pride in the fact that all equality legislation had been passed by a Fianna Fáil-led Government.

He added that TDs were constantly "raising the issue, validly, of spending on PR and consultancies" and he said in 2007 the equality authority "spent €220,000 on public relations; €100,000 on consultants; €614,000 on the European year of equal opportunities, half-funded from EU and half from the agency's own budget; €350,000 on an anti-racist week; €230,000 on a national campaign for ageism, and the spending of that money was criticised by the Opposition; €184,000 on publications."

When Mr Rabbitte referred to the payments to the board and the allegation against the general secretary, Mr Ahern rounded on him, leading to the trading of increasingly bitter insults and the suspension of the House.