Taoiseach Enda Kenny and the Government have been accused of "frightening the living daylights" out of people with speculation about proposed Budget cuts.
Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin also accused the Taoiseach of showing contempt for the Dáil because he had failed to provide opportunities to the Opposition to “proactively engage” in budgetary discussions.
Mr Martin said the Cabinet was engaged in a “deeply cynical exercise of raising all sorts of issue” and “then coming up with the cynical line ‘we signed off on nothing’”.
Socialist TD Joe Higgins also accused the Taoiseach and his Ministers of “cynical kite-flying exercises” about possible cuts and manipulating the media and the public with “horror stories”.
The Opposition accusations follow the latest reports that Minister for Health Dr James Reilly is considering closing up to 42 community nursing homes, increasing the charge for medical card prescription items, charging €50 for the medical card and the possibility of charging for home care for the elderly as part of the need to cut €500 million from the health budget.
Focusing in particular on the Labour party Mr Higgins asked the Taoiseach to make an “honest” leader of the Tánaiste and the “little elves” of the Labour party whose pre-election promises included no cuts in social welfare or child benefit and the reversal of third level registration charges.
Mr Kenny said the Labour party was honest. Pre-election promises as a party were different from the programme for government agreed between two government parties.
Earlier during extremely heated exchanges Mr Martin said: “Don’t you ever again Taoiseach come into this House and talk about Dáil reform because you don’t mean it. You don’t mean a word of what you say. Because you said you’d provide opportunities.
“You have provided no opportunities to the Opposition members to have any proactive participative engagement in budget details because the Cabinet programme was published outside the House.”
Mr Kenny said the Fianna Fáil leader should be “ashamed of yourself” and what his party had done “in the middle of the night” with the bank guarantee.
Mr Martin said “there is a lot of arrogance, Taoiseach, in how you are treating the Dáil, a lot of contempt towards the Dáil”. He asked the Taoiseach to confirm “that these closures are planned in relation to community hospitals across the country”.
He also called for a presentation “in this House with every deputy in this House having access to the kind of presentation that was made to the Fine Gael parliamentary party and to the Labour party in advance of the Budget”.
Mr Kenny said he had written to Mr Martin and other party leaders recently “to suggest to you that you should avail of the opportunity that has always been there for many years that opposition parties could avail of, their cost proposals as to their alternative preparation for the budget”.