The Green Party leader, Mr Trevor Sargent, was forced to withdraw an accusation that the Taoiseach was a "drug pusher" because of his opening of pubs.
There was uproar when Mr Sargent claimed that by opening pubs, Mr Ahern was advertising alcohol, which was a drug, and was therefore promoting it.
The Taoiseach called for him to withdraw the remarks and after repeated calls from the Ceann Comhairle, Dr Rory O'Hanlon, the Dublin North TD eventually said he would withdraw the word "push" and replace it with "promote".
The issue was raised by Mr Joe Higgins (Socialist, Dublin West) who asked if the Taoiseach would be "imposing on yourself a pub-opening purdah" pending the introduction of legislation to curb alcohol advertising.
Mr Higgins said "there's hardly a pub the length and breadth of the land that hasn't a plaque proclaiming that the Taoiseach himself opened it" and this made Mr Ahern a "significant advertiser for the alcohol industry".
The Taoiseach said that "I will be very glad to bring Deputy Higgins to a pub and buy him a pint because I gather he's not too good at buying them himself".
Mr Higgins said "I live on an average worker's wage, I have a pint, but if I was living on €200,000 a year like you I could buy drink for everybody."
Mr Sargent said 40 per cent of crashes were linked to alcohol, and called for Mr Ahern to "tell his friends he will not be opening any more pubs".
He added: "It is in his gift to open or not to open pubs", and then said "he's pushing drugs as well".
Mr Ahern replied "C'mon out of it" and called for a retraction.
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