Labour parliamentary party meeting: The Labour Party leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte, has started the party's campaign for the forthcoming Dáil session with an attack on the Taoiseach, claiming he and his Government have been "gripped by paralysis".
Speaking at the start of a two-day meeting of the Labour Party parliamentary party in Wexford, Mr Rabbitte also accused Mr Ahern and his Ministers of "making a mockery" of the Oireachtas.
He said the party would bring forward proposals for a radical reform of Oireachtas operations.
In his speech, Mr Rabbitte also focused on the recent resignation of Ms Justice Mary Laffoy, and said the Government was "bent on ensuring that the truth never emerges in the great majority of cases" before the child abuse commission.
The speech marked the start of the two-day meeting at which Labour TDs and senators will discuss strategy for the forthcoming Dáil session, and the party's campaign for next June's local and European elections.
Later this month Labour is also to initiate a high-profile recruitment campaign.
Mr Rabbitte said the Government was paralysed because the Taoiseach had failed to clarify his position on a various issues.
"Where does the Taoiseach stand on Martin Cullen's proposal to either abolish or increase the limits for electoral fund raising?" he asked.
"Is the Taoiseach going to follow through on his thinking aloud on proposals to cap the price of building land? If one-off homes is 'the biggest issue facing politics', when will the Taoiseach's Government publish a policy on rural housing? Does the Taoiseach support Minister McDowell's proposals to stop the gardaí giving information to journalists? Has the Taoiseach clarified whether the Laffoy criticisms are justified or not?"
Mr Rabbitte also called on the Taoiseach to give his views on the recent controversy generated by four Sinn Féin TDs who posed for photographs in Castlerea Prison with the men convicted of the killing of Det Garda Jerry McCabe.
Mr Rabbitte said the Government was becoming "more and more incompetent, out of touch and unaccountable".
Labour would bring forward radical proposals aimed at reforming the workings of the Dáil. "I believe a much more fundamental overhaul is necessary if parliament is once again to function as a body which ensures that the interests of the people are always reflected in the way an administration goes about its business," he said.
He also believed the role of parliament had been highlighted by the Ms Justice Laffoy's resignation.
The Labour Party would oppose any attempts to introduce legislation allowing for the sampling of abuse cases for hearing at the commission in order to reduce time and costs.
"This present Government . . . has instituted a series of actions that are designed in their effects to prevent the vast majority of those people who were abused ever having the right to face their abuser or the organisation that employed that abuser," he said.
The introduction of a sampling method also risked "driving hundreds of survivors of abuse to the Four Courts", according to Mr Rabbitte, adding further to the costs faced by the State.
"We will not allow the Government of the day, whom we applauded when they apologised, to make a mockery of that apology now," he said.