Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte has blamed Fianna Fáil for the economic failures of the 1980s, saying the Taoiseach's claim that his party cured rather than caused the problems was a "grotesque" revision of history.
Responding to Fianna Fáil's attacks last week on Fine Gael and Labour's record in government, he said it was Fianna Fáil who had turned the 1980s into a decade of unemployment, emigration and debt.
Referring to the 1994-1997 Rainbow Government denigrated by the Taoiseach and his Ministers last week, he said: "No government since 1922 bequeathed to its successor an economy in such good shape.
"The economy was growing, inflation was low, and jobs were being created at better than 1,000 net new jobs per week. At the same time there was a priority given to social investment and tackling the inequities in our society," he told the Tom Johnson summer school in Kells, Co Meath.
Mr Ahern had said the Rainbow Government bought the economy to the state of that in Ethiopia and Sudan. Mr Rabbitte said while GNP growth under Ruairí Quinn's tenure as minister for finance from 1994 to 1997 averaged 8.2 per cent per annum, it averaged 5.7 per cent under Charlie McCreevy. Inflation averaged 1.9 per cent under Mr Quinn, compared to 3.5 per cent under Mr McCreevy.
He said employment growth was 4.2 per cent per annum under Mr Quinn, and 4 per cent under Mr McCreevy. Unemployment fell by 4.4 percentage points in three years. This had laid foundations for a project in which "the wealth created might have been used to further address the inequalities in our society."
However, while Irish people were the second wealthiest in the world in terms of per capita income, Ireland was among the most unequal of the world's wealthy countries. It had the third highest level of poverty in the 18 countries surveyed in last week's UN Human Development Report.
He listed projects on which he said the Government had wasted public money, including "electronic voting, Punchestown, Abbotstown, the aquatic centre, the nursing homes scandal, the open-ended indemnity for the religious orders, the roads programme that has gone from less than €6 billion in 1999 to €17 billion".
He said the 1980s had been a decade of high inflation, mass unemployment and soaring debt, which brought deep suffering, the misery of unemployment and forced separation.
While Mr Ahern liked to claim that Mr Haughey's government had rescued this situation, it was they who had caused it in the first place.
This had been done through allowing spending go out of control as Mr Haughey sought to spend public money to buy re-election.
"During difficult economic times internationally, the governments that came after it were left to struggle with an appalling economic inheritance.
"The real lesson of the 1980s is that it was real people - those who lost their jobs, those who emigrated and those they left behind - who paid the price of an unbridled lust for power and wealth."
He said Labour's aim was not just to change the Cabinet. "Our aim is to make good on the promise of the Celtic Tiger. To use our national prosperity to bridge the chasm between the success of our economy and the strain on our society."