Government Ministers were accused of behaving as if they were in a game of musical chairs in dealing with the passage of the controversial citizenship referendum Bill in the Dáil, which passed yesterday by 53 votes to 42.
The Fine Gael deputy leader, Mr Richard Bruton, said that different Ministers sat in the Dáil for the committee stage of the Bill.
They "acted as if they were in a game of musical chairs, with one Minister and then another in, rotating all the time. That is not the right environment for the kind of debate needed," he said.
The Labour leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte, claimed that the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell, had deliberately scheduled the committee stage on Wednesday, when he knew he would be absent for most of the day.
Mr McDowell was chairing a meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Council of Ministers in Luxembourg.
The Green Party leader, Mr Trevor Sargent, said the Government was demonstrating not only an unseemly haste but was dealing with the matter in a "destructive manner in the wider context of the peace process".
Sinn Féin's justice spokesman, Mr Aengus Ó Snodaigh, said that the parties to the Belfast Agreement should have a say in the changes.
"We were given a document, told to read it and then presented with another document as a fait accompli. That is not consultation," he said.
But the Minister of State for Justice, Mr Willie O'Dea, said that the proposal was "consistent with the British-Irish Agreement" and with the Good Friday agreement generally.
The legislation goes to the Seanad today.
The referendum proposal that the electorate will vote on reads as follows:
"The 27th Amendment of the Constitution Bill, 2004, proposes to insert the following section after section 1 of Article 9 of the Constitution: Notwithstanding any other provision of this Constitution a person born in the island of Ireland, which includes its islands and seas, who does not have, at the time of the birth of that person, at least one parent who is an Irish citizen or entitled to be an Irish citizen, is not entitled to Irish citizenship or nationality, unless provided for by law."
