The President, Mrs McAleese, should refer the Finance Bill to the Supreme Court if the tax individualisation measure was passed, delegates were told.
Mr Pat Kelly from Cork North Central said the measure was so severe and would have such a fundamental effect on society and the community that it should go to the Supreme Court because he believed it was fundamentally unconstitutional.
His views were echoed by another delegate, Mr Joe Walsh, who told the finance debate, "we've always been able to support women in the home from the earliest times and now when there is plenty of money available we're not".
He said Ireland was "not simply an economy. We are a community of people. The economy should serve the family and not the other way around. The value of parenting is not being recognised."
Mr Walsh added that the State was prepared to discriminate against couples where one worked in the home and the principle of individualisation did not recognise the work of the housewife.
However, the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, defended the measure and was convinced "that an individual approach to tax bands is entirely consistent with our core values".
Equal tax for equal income and support for carers in the home "complement each other. Both are fully consistent with our party's commitment to social solidarity, fairness and enterprise."
He stressed that "equal opportunity and equal participation in the world of work have not undermined the values that Fianna Fail and the Irish people hold dear. Nor will treating people as individual earners in the tax code. Nothing could be further from the truth; nothing could be further from the Government's and our party's ambitions for the country."
Individual, equal treatment of spouses in tax "brings to the fore some deeply held beliefs. That is as it should be," the Minister said during the debate attended by the Taoiseach.
There should, however, be equal tax for equal income, he said. "Individual tax bands won't drive anyone to do anything they don't want to do. No one will lose any allowance or be worse off because of the change in this Budget or future budgets.
"That and the goal of bringing most people off the top rate of tax is the thinking behind the re-design of tax allowances we introduced in the Budget."
He believed it was "right up to date with the reality of living and working in Ireland today. And I believe more and more people are seeing the truth of that, and I am pleased that the social partners recognised it in the new partnership agreement."
The Minister said: "It is fully consistent with supporting the family and helping with the costs of caring for children and others. You don't have to take that on faith - we will show you by our actions and policies that Fianna Fail will continue to support the family."