The Dail was adjourned in uproar yesterday when a row broke out over Emerald Meats and the Department of Agriculture's dealings with the company over the licence for imported beef quotas.

During heated exchanges Labour's spokesman on enterprise, employment and trade, Mr Pat Rabbitte, accused the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, of being involved in "crooked decisions" for 10 years.

Mr Rabbitte, who raised the issue on the adjournment, said the Exchequer had been "ripped off" by millions of pounds because of "unlawful collusion" between the Department of Agriculture and companies in the beef processing sector in a "scam".

When the Minister got up to reply he said that Mr Rabbitte would want to "deflect from the scandal in his new political vehicle, namely the Labour Party, and your Woodchester Four".

Mr Rabbitte jumped to his feet and said: "Is that all you have to say after nine years? You've been involved in crooked dealings with Goodman for 10 years."

The Leas-Ceann Comhairle, Dr Rory O'Hanlon, called for order and for Mr Rabbitte to sit down. Mr Rabbitte said that Mr Michael O'Kennedy, a previous minister for agriculture, had been implicated in the issue "when all the time it was you - you have been the one".

Mr Walsh said that Mr Rabbitte was behaving disgracefully. Mr Rabbitte asked him if he had seen the programme, on RTE's Prime Time earlier this week, which dealt with beef imported from third countries and the companies getting the licences. "Are you not ashamed? Will you not apologise to the House?"

Dr O'Hanlon said he was adjourning the House because Mr Rabbitte would not resume his seat.

Earlier Mr Rabbitte said that it was a "scandal that reflects only discredit on a major Department of the State. It reflects the climate of favouritism instigated by ministers at the time, and since, towards the Goodman Group, and it reflects no credit on the gardai, who if they had acted on complaints made to them, millions might have been spared the taxpayer.

"Why did the Department become wantonly entangled in a conspiracy to ruin a small company to the benefit of giant competitors? Why did the gardai not act on complaints made to them? Why did the Department persist in wasteful and expensive litigation when it had fabricated documents and lied to Brussels?"

Mr Rabbitte had said that either at political instigation or by "mere complicity", civil servants were involved in unlawful collusion with the companies in the beef processing sector who were the intended beneficiaries of the scam.

Legal costs of more than one million pounds had arisen from "unnecessary and wasteful litigation" that the Department got embroiled in and were paid out last year, and general damages to the injured party, Emerald Meats, had yet to be assessed.

He said the Department ignored all entreaties to desist in the case which arose from a change in the rules of importing meat from third countries under GATT obligations.

Almost all the main beef companies had sold their quotas to Emerald Meats. When the rules were changed in 1989, the quotas were to go to the traditional importers, and they should have gone to Emerald Meats.

"In blatant contravention of the law, the other beef companies - predominantly the Goodman Group - and the Department of Agriculture officials conspired to knowingly misrepresent the historical position to Brussels," and listed a fictional list of "traditional importers" to Brussels.