THE Taoiseach accused Mr Ahern of "deserting your own people" by proposing tax rates which, he claimed, benefited the rich rather than the poor.
Mr Ahern rejected this, saying his proposals would mean an increase of more than £800 a year in income to a married couple on £11,000 or a single person on £8,000.
Mr Bruton was asked the fundamental difference between the Coalition and the Fianna Fail PD position on tax. He said: "The fundamental difference is that Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats both want to reduce tax rates rather than increase the tax free allowances and widen the bands.
"What that means in practice is that our approach takes large numbers of people out of the tax net altogether, old age pensioners for instance. Those on low income will be taken out of the tax net and won't have a penny of income tax to pay.
"Our approach helps the people on the margins whether they have a job or not. Whereas by focusing on the rates, probably because they want to make their tax plans sound simple, Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats are helping the people at the top just as the PDs, when they were in office did before when they gave five times as much tax reduction to people on £50,000 a year but nothing to the person on the margins.
"Certainly we are going to give benefits right up to people at very high incomes but we are going to give the maximum benefits at the lower end."
Mr Ahern said: "We have made no mistakes whatever. Fianna Fail have stated we have to have a new introductory rate of 20 per cent and, in lime we want to work the standard rate down to that 20 per cent. The higher rate we say should be worked down to 43 per cent. We should try to achieve a position where 80 per cent of people who pay tax pay it at the standard rate, eventually 20 per cent."
On the single currency issue, Mr Bruton said: "Being the only English speaking country in the new euro zone and the euro is going to become one of the big currencies of the world - we will actually be able to attract far more financial services industries here to Dublin. We will actually be taking business from London because the euro will be a reserve currency and we will be the only English speaking part of it."
He added: "The Progressive Democrats have said that they are sceptical about joining the euro without Britain and they are also saying that immediately we would say what rate we should enter the euro at - and those are two contradictory positions for a start. To my mind the one thing you can't have doubt about within a government is currency policy. And Bertie Ahern should know that better than anyone else.
"When he was Minister for Finance, because there was uncertainty in the currency, it eventually resulted in a devaluation and interest rates went up to 30 per cent. You can't afford that sort of uncertainty."
Mr Ahern answered saying: "The way we handled the currency crisis in 1992 prevented this country from having to devalue two or three times like Spain and Portugal. We had one decisive decision in January 1993 which brought down very successfully interest and then we had 10 reductions in interest. You and your spokesmen op finance were totally at variance with that.
"If I had taken your advice as you first gave it, I would have ended up devaluing as Spain and Portugal in September and November. The issue as far as I am concerned is that there are more people at work now because of the way we handled the economy than there ever were. Long term unemployment fell by 25,000 in my last year.
"I am in favour of the single currency. I am in favour of the euro and I am totally in favour of the EMU."
Asked about the PD position he said: "Our partners in the Progressive Democrats, all they stated was that we should be very careful about a competitiveness position if the United Kingdom stay out and, of course, we will have to watch our fiscal position if that happens and that is the point of what the OECD stated about public expenditure and we will have to be careful about these things."