The Labour president Michael D Higgins has rejected Michael McDowell's claims that the party has executed a "hypocritical volte face" on immigration, saying Labour stands by a policy proposal it made on the issue last year.
Mr Higgins said Labour was not opposed to immigration, either from elsewhere in the EU or outside it.
What it did oppose was the "totally unregulated labour market that the Justice Minister and his party supports so as to drive down wages and labour standards".
He was responding to the Progressive Democrats president, Mr McDowell, who claimed on Thursday that Pat Rabbitte's recent suggestion that citizens from the new EU member states might require work permits was inconsistent with proposals the party made just seven months ago.
Back then, he said, Mr Rabbitte had said that not only should Ireland allow unrestricted access to EU migrants, it should allow a further 15,000 migrants from other countries to come in.
Mr Higgins also quoted that Labour document which, he said, had argued that even if the bulk of Ireland's labour market needs could be met from within the enlarged EU, there should not be an automatic shutting down of immigration for work purposes from other countries.
"Nothing in our more recent policy statement, which incidentally was approved by Labour's Parliamentary Party, detracts from that position in July of last year," he said.
"We have not called for a shutting down of immigration for work purposes from non-EEA countries - let alone from the EU accession states. What we raised is 'the issue of job displacement and immigration policy and whether, unless employment standards are maintained, there may be a need to manage migration through new and reformed work permits regime'."
Mr Higgins said that at the launch of his party's recent policy document, Mr Rabbitte had said in response to specific questions on the issue, "that neither he nor Labour call for the immediate re-introduction of work permits for the eight countries with which we have transitional arrangements. And, of course, the central thrust of our statement was that, if economic circumstances did lead to a need for a review, then we would favour a new and improved work permit scheme, rather than a shutdown of immigration."
He said the Government of which Mr McDowell was a member had failed to place a sufficient inspectorate in place to ensure even the most basic standards for workers in this country.