The Taoiseach strongly denied there had been any attempt by an official in his office to discredit the Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton.

Mr Ahern was responding to Fine Gael demands that he comment on the controversy whereby information left out of a Dail reply to a parliamentary question was received by a journalist before it was placed on the Dail record.

The question related to a property sale to Irish Intercontinental Bank in 1987 by Mr Bruton, who was then minister for finance.

Mr Ahern said information, "honestly believed to be in the public record", was given to the media in the course of inquiries being made.

Fine Gael deputies, including the party's deputy leader, Mrs Nora Owen, called on the Taoiseach to say if the official who supplied the information was a civil servant or a political adviser. Amid noisy and heated exchanges, Mrs Owen referred to the "two Gerrys" working as political advisers in Mr Ahern's Department.

The Taoiseach replied that it did not matter who the person was. "I am responsible. I accept responsibility. I have done so."

Mr Ahern insisted there was no truth whatever "in the central, repeated accusation that has been made again here, that information for reply to a parliamentary question was deliberately withheld by anyone in any part of Government Buildings in order that it should be released exclusively to anybody."

The Fine Gael chief whip, Mr Sean Barrett, interjected to say: "It was dirty tricks."

Mr Ahern added: "The material was in a draft reply. It was of little consequence and certainly it was incriminating nobody, as has been made clear. All that was involved was the wide dissemination of a fairly innocuous piece of information already believed, in good faith, to be in the public domain.

"An official in my office, who, of course, I am responsible for, gave this out when he was asked a question about a related matter. There was no deliberate or malicious leak.

"On the contrary, information which was honestly believed to be in the public record was given to the media in the course of inquiries. Nobody from my office contacted anybody from the media with this information.

"Could I just say generally - I know that Deputy Barrett does not really mean the things he is saying - I do not believe in blackening anybody. I will have my political rows with Deputy Bruton and everybody else, but it is not my practice to go about . . . In my view, it is not appropriate for staff in any Government office, whether politically appointed or otherwise, to engage in any activity involving third parties that could reasonably be construed as politically partisan and directed against other democratically-elected people.

"I exclude from this category situations where staff members, politically appointed or otherwise, are specifically charged by members of Government to refute or defend on their behalf accusations made against them."

He said it had been alleged in the current controversy that somebody knowingly went out with information which they thought was not in the public domain. "That is not the case. The official involved, who is not familiar with the parliamentary questions system, thought the parliamentary question was already in the public domain."

The matter was later raised on the adjournment by Mr Billy Timmins (FG, Wicklow) who asked the Minister of State for Finance, Mr Martin Cullen, a series of questions. Mr Cullen has responsibility for the Office of Public Works (OPW).

Mr Cullen said a parliamentary question had been tabled asking the Minister for Finance if his Department disposed of any assets or property with a value of or greater than £200,000 between 1987 and 1992 inclusive, without going to public tender.

The OPW provided draft material to the Department of Finance, which stated that 14 properties with a value in excess of £200,000 had been disposed of by it in the relevant period. Information on assets was a matter for the Department of Finance, but it could not be assembled in time.

The Department decided in the circumstances to issue an interim reply to the parliamentary question.

"The reply was processed in my office in the normal way. The material was approved, unaltered, by me and sent to the Department of Finance for inclusion in the composite reply. As I have already made clear, neither I nor the OPW was involved in any way in the decision to issue a holding reply."

Mr Cullen said there were no papers of any description sent to the Taoiseach's office. "I also want to state clearly there is absolutely no question that the Taoiseach's office and the official in it acted in an absolutely bona fide way in the absolute belief that the information being made available was already in the public domain."