Dail sketch/ Marie O'Halloran: Another day, another round of recriminations, personalised comments and savage wit, as the Opposition made more hay about the €150 million spent on the health service computer system.
PPARs (Personnel, Pay and Related Systems) seems to have become the Irish equivalent of the US "Star Wars", such are its potential s.
Enda Kenny did not take lightly the Taoiseach's accusations on Tuesday that he had been "dishonest in the presentation of facts".
It was the Taoiseach who was wrong, the Fine Gael leader retorted. Bertie had said PPARs was not an IT system, that the health boards decided they needed a new system, that Deloitte & Touche had trained 140,000 staff and that the Health Service Executive had told the media several times it was reviewing the system. On those four issues "the Taoiseach is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong", said Enda, sounding a little like Maggie Thatcher with her infamous "out, out, out".
Bertie said the 11 health boards, now in the Health Service Executive, had not done a great job "to date" in getting the system right, but "they should continue to try to get it right". Enda advised him to "put down the shovel" and "when one is in a hole, one should stop digging".
Pat Rabbitte took a more verbally lethal approach. The Taoiseach was not just wrong, but the "only thing more breathtaking than washing €160 million of taxpayers' money down the toilet bowls was the breathtaking, contemptuous, disingenuousness and dishonesty of the Taoiseach's response". Nobody in this Government ever takes responsibility for anything, the Labour leader said. "How come the Taoiseach cannot come into this House for a change and admit there has been a monumental cock-up, a Niagara of waste of taxpayers' money."
The Tánaiste was another target. She had said the Government would put its hands up if it found it was wrong about the computer system, but "she has not been able to take her hands down since she took over from the former minister, Deputy Micheál Martin".
And there was no doubt in Rabbitte's mind but that the deputy was responsible for the computer fiasco. "Everything he touches ends up costing the taxpayer at least tens of millions of euro."
Harney's approach was more "folksy, down-home, everyone-trusts-me style", but how could it work when there were so many incoherent systems in the health boards.
And then it was the turn of consultants Deloitte & Touche. They should be called "Delighted & Touche because they must be delighted with the kind of money they raked off from the Exchequer".
When the Taoiseach started to respond, members of the Opposition joked, laughed and heckled. They were warned that if they continued the Taoiseach's colleagues "will make as much noise as them".
However normally vocal and witty in their heckles, the Government backbenchers remained muted this time.