The Labour party has called for the President, Mrs McAleese, to hold a meeting of her Council of State to deal with the controversial Freedom of Information (FoI) legislation, which completed its passage through the Dáil yesterday.
Ms Joan Burton, Labour's finance spokeswoman, condemned the "new and dangerous expansion of the notion of Government", which she said was a "unique" development of constitutional Government in Ireland and completely foreign to the Constitution as it currently stands.
Fine Gael's spokesman, Mr Richard Bruton, claimed the Government was trying to push the legislation through in a "jackboot manner".
However, the Taoiseach insisted the amendments were not "earth-shattering".
Mr Ahern, rejecting the notion that the existing FoI Act was being "filleted", also said there was sufficient consultation and debate, including 27 hours in the Seanad and four days at committee stage, when amendments were discussed.
Mr Dan Boyle, the Green Party spokesman, said that regardless of the length of time "it is the quality of the scrutiny" that counted and the Government's refusal to allow the Parliamentary legal adviser to be available to look at controversial amendments, diminished TDs' roles as legislators.
Under the legislation to amend the existing act, the definition of Government will include Cabinet Ministers and Ministers of State, civil servants or advisors and any other person or body.
There was "no limit" on who could be described as part of Government, Ms Burton said. "We are to have secret Government membership in this country. We will no longer know the names of those in Government who are on these committees."
Provisions in the Bill allow the exclusion from release of documents linked to committees set up to advise the Cabinet on issues for consideration or Government decision, known as the "deliberative process".
The Taoiseach had no difficulty with the Act but "thank God" there would be a change in the deliberative process. Mr Ahern believed it was a "mistake in the first place".
It was a "ludicrous system" to have a Cabinet debate "when documents are coming out and the entire issue is in the public domain", and it ran counter to the idea of collective Cabinet responsibility, he said.
Mr Ahern also believed the new legislation would not affect the views and opinions that Ministers received from their civil servants.
Mr Ahern said he had been in the Cabinet a long time, was very familiar with the system and "years ago you got a file from a department along with the manuscript notes of civil servants setting out their views and different arguments.
But that is all gone. You do not get that anymore". He said it was "a sad day when we lost that, but so be it".
Under the provisions of the Bill, Department Secretary Generals would issue certificates to prevent the work of the committees advising the Government becoming public, and the Opposition complained that as well as not knowing the names of those on the committees, they would not know what the issues discussed were.
The Opposition was denied the opportunity for the legal adviser of the Oireachtas to give an opinion on the controversial provisions, Ms Burton said.
The only recourse left open to citizens and interested groups was to petition the President to ask her to convene the Council of State to advise on the legislation.
Other provisions include a delay from five to 10 years in the release of Cabinet papers, no release of correspondence between Ministers and a block on the release of Ministers' briefing documents for parliamentary questions. The provisions also include an up-front payment for information requests.
The Bill now goes back to the Seanad for amendments.
