The Labour Party leader, Mr Ruairi Quinn, has accused Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and the Progressive Democrats of being uninterested in pursuing the origins of the £38 million in the Ansbacher accounts. Mr Quinn severely criticised Fianna Fail, claiming that "not much" had changed in the party. "The worst fears of those of us who campaigned against the style of Mr Charles Haughey, for instance, have been vindicated. The reality is that things proved even worse than we suspected."
Cabinet government, the basic system of government, was "effectively usurped by one man who dictated what did and did not happen".
Mr Quinn was speaking last night at a convention which selected Senator Sean Ryan as the Labour candidate for the Dublin North by-election.
Criticising last week's Budget, Mr Quinn said none of the £20 million granted to Croke Park would find its way into the hands of clubs which sustained the GAA. Asking who had ordered this grant, he said it was certainly not the Minister with statutory responsibility for sport, "who appears to have known nothing about it".
"So, who framed the Budget if not the Government - the Taoiseach, the Tanaiste and the Minister for Finance? Things may have advanced from Mr Haughey's day but not by much".
Meanwhile in Limerick East, an anti-service-charges campaigner, Mr John Gilligan, has declared himself a candidate.