The reported sending of a file to the Attorney General about an AIB loan for Beaumont Hospital led to heated and noisy exchanges.

Mr Michael Noonan (FG, Limerick East) raised the matter with the Minister for the Marine, Dr Woods, who was taking the Order of Business in the absence of the Taoiseach and Tanaiste.

Mr Noonan asked: "Will the Minister confirm that the Minister for Health and Children, Mr Cowen, sent a file to the AG arising from the raising of a loan by AIB for the funding of Beaumont Hospital in 1980, when Deputy Woods was Minister for Health?

"Will the Minister be making a statement on the matter?"

Dr Woods said: "That was a good arrangement which provided funds for mental handicap and psychiatric services. It was innovative and I have no problem discussing it. It was an excellent arrangement for the building of Beaumont Hospital, of which I am very proud."

Mr Noonan asked if the loan had been put out to tender. "Was it sanctioned by the Minister for Finance? Was it directed by the then Taoiseach?"

Amid uproar the Ceann Comhairle, Mr Seamus Pattison, said that Mr Noonan had other ways to pursue the matter.

The Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, asked: "Who benefited? Why was the file sent to the AG? Is Deputy Cowen engaging in something to the Minister's disadvantage?"

Dr Woods replied: "The deputy throws this out with the usual innuendo."

Further pressed by the opposition, Dr Woods said: "The only defence I will make is that it was my idea. It helped the mental handicap and psychiatric services and it built Beaumont Hospital."

Mr Michael Finucane (FG, Limerick West) said: "It helped Charlie Haughey."