The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, again insisted yesterday he was a socialist, but distanced himself from the policies of Dublin West Socialist Party TD Mr Joe Higgins. Michael O'Regan reports.
Mr Ahern said his politics and ideology might be closer to those of Labour's Mr Michael D. Higgins.
"I have watched and listened to Deputy Joe Higgins with interest for three decades, but I have never heard him say anything positive.
"He displays what I believe to be a far-left or 'commie' resistance to everything.
"He does so in the hope that some day the world will discover oil wells off our coast which will fall into the ownership of the State, thereby allowing us to run a great market economy with the State at its centre. That utopia does not exist."
Earlier, Mr Higgins said he had been abroad for several days on political work to advance the cause of socialism.
"You can imagine, Cheann Comhairle, how perplexed I was when I returned to find my wardrobe almost empty. The Taoiseach had been busy robbing my clothes.
"Up to recently the Progressive Democrats did not have a stitch left due to the same Taoiseach, but we never expected him to take a walk on the left side of the road."
Mr Higgins said that the words of the writer Tomas Ó Criomhthain had come to mind as he lamented that the likes of the last of the Blasket Islanders would never be seen again.
"I then thought: 'Good, Taoiseach. There are two of us in it, and we will go down together.' Sadly, I had a reality check. If this conversion was genuine, we would have to go back 2,000 years to find another as rapid and as radical.
"Saul's embrace of Christianity on the road to Damascus stood the test of time, but the Taoiseach's embrace of socialism on the banks of the Tolka hardly will."
During the noisy exchanges, Mr Ahern referred to Dr Jerry Cowley (Independent, Mayo) as "a right-wing doctor".
Dr Cowley was expelled from the Chamber when he continued to insist that Mr Ahern withdraw the remark.