Fianna Fail has elevated pragmatism to be the "supreme political value", according to the Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, who said the Taoiseach would have to renew his party from the Opposition benches.

During the debate on the Labour motion of no confidence in the Government, Mr Bruton said that whether the coalition lasted two months or two years, "the general election campaign starts a 5 p.m. this afternoon". The country needed "a real government, not 15 tribunal-watchers sitting in Government Buildings while their minds are elsewhere".

There was "no longer any principle for which Fianna Fail would be willing to sacrifice office. That ultimate pragmatism, that vacuum of political principle, has created an opening through which certain business interests were able to colonise and corrupt top-level people within Fianna Fail."

In a 30-minute speech peppered with heckling from the Government benches, Mr Bruton said: "Listening to the Taoiseach's speech I was struck by how good his memory was of things affecting other people that happened in 1994. That is in contrast with the very poor memory he seems to have of events affecting himself in 1996."

The Taoiseach said: "Like you and Cllr Morrissey and the casino."

The Fine Gael leader condemned the Taoiseach and said it was "grotesque, at the beginning of a new millennium, that we still have as Taoiseach someone who signed thousands of blank cheques for Charlie Haughey".

"It is unbelievable that we have a Taoiseach who is so disloyal to his current Minister for Finance that he ordered him into the Dail to answer questions on the Taoiseach's own radio comments on Hugh O'Flaherty without ever explaining the motivations of those comments to the Minister who was forced to answer for them to the Dail."

Mr Dick Roche (FF, Wicklow) shouted over at Mr Bruton: "This is the man who collapsed the ceasefire."

Mr Bruton went on: "It is bizarre that we have a Fianna Fail party still in office that could select Ray Burke to be foreign minister, Deputy Denis Foley as its senior representative on a Dail committee to maintain financial probity, Deputy Liam Lawlor as its representative on a Dail committee on political ethics and Deputy John Ellis as its nominee to head a Dail committee to protect the financial interests of farmers."

Condemning the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, he said it was "unprecedented that we still have as Tanaiste someone whose loose words brought down the first ever criminal trial in northern Europe of a former prime minister, and who has not yet apologised for what she did to the Dail or to the people.

"It may well be grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented. But none of this is accidental, nor was it unpredictable."

He said: "The people will not forget the Hugh O'Flaherty affair, even though the Tanaiste and the Taoiseach would like to assume they will. The people passed an intermediate judgment on the Government in south Tipperary; they will pass final judgment before long."

The Government's sell-by date has passed and "like any food product which has passed its sell-by date, staleness is followed by deterioration".

He added: "Good government is about delivering three key components, namely moral leadership, sound economic policies and social justice. The Government is failing on all three fronts.

"We have not seen any personal moral leadership or accountability from the Taoiseach or the Tanaiste. In the great tradition of the Fianna Fail-led coalitions of former Deputy Haughey and Deputy Reynolds, turmoil, in-fighting and internal disloyalty are the norm."

The "O'Flaherty affair was a watershed for the Government. It changed the public's unease and doubt about the Government to outright distrust and dislike. Is it any wonder that Fianna Fail did so disastrously in Tipperary South?"