Fine Gael and Labour attacked the Government this morning over former education minister Dr Michael Woods's handling of the school's building programme in the lead-up to the general election last year.
The Government cynically used the programme to maximise political gain, Fine Gael leader Mr Enda Kenny said in a statement. He accused the Government of misusing Ministerial office.
The attack comes one day after the Government published a detailed defence of its first year in power and the promises it made prior to the election.
It was reported this morning that there was a serious breach between the office of Mr Woods and the unit with responsibility for the schools building programme.
Between January 2002 to April 2002, the Minister "created a chaotic situation in his Department", and made "apparently arbitrary and almost certainly politically inspired decisions about projects," Mr Kenny said.
In January of last year, civil servants in the Primary Building Unit complained that a factual note about a School Building Programme had been amended by the Minister's office in a way, which put a "misleading slant" on the information, according to details highlighted by Fine Gael's Mr Paul McGrath yesterday and published in the Irish Independentthis morning.
In a meeting to discuss building projects in February 2002 the Minister is quoted as saying he wanted the Building Unit to "avoid the negative wording" when communicating with schools about their projects. In some cases, officials noted "there was no discussion with the Building Unit about these projects," Mr McGrath claimed.
Mr Kenny called for an urgent inquiry "to review all the relevant departmental papers between January 2002 and May 2002. He said officials and Ministers guilty of such practices should be called before a public inquiry and "made to account for their actions".
Labour's Jan O Sullivan said the report makes "a total nonsense" of the new document from Fianna Fáil protesting it did not mislead the public during its general election campaign.
In a 14-page document, Fianna Fáil complains of "a concerted campaign to convince people that they were conned by the party on the economic situation prior to the election".
"Nothing could be further from the truth," it claimed.
The Taoiseach said this morning he believed his party "set out clearly to say what we had said."
"There is a danger if somebody says something too often that people will believe it," Mr Ahern added.
The detailed defence, emerging days after a disastrous showing for the party in the latest Irish Times/TNS mrbi poll, is an indication of the concern shared by the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and other senior figures.