DAIL REPORT: The Fine Gael spokesman on finance, Mr Richard Bruton, claimed that nobody would benefit from the Budget.

"The issue is: who benefits from this Budget? Who gains? Whose quality of life is going to be markedly improved by this Budget? The answer is nobody's," he said.

Mr Bruton added: "You will have to look long before you will find any section of our community, either the young, those looking to public services for help, those needing care, who will see any benefit.

"This Budget is not about people. It is just about keeping the system going, farming it along and feeding it just to mark time."

Ministers, he said, were boasting about millions spent "but the public do not care about how many millions are spent. They want to see what you got for it and, sadly, if you look at our public institutions, our hospitals, our schools, you will see that little or nothing has been got for what was spent."

Mr Bruton said the price of the Budget was not what they had seen.

"The price of this Budget is going to be found in the continuing stealth taxes people will face over the coming months. It is going to be found in the squeeze on services for people at the very bottom of the pile.

"People who depend on public services for survival are going to be squeezed as a result of this Budget. We are going to see the cost of benchmarking - €1,000 per household."

He predicted that the superficial smiles visible on the Fianna Fáil benches would soon fade away as the reality of the Budget struck home to ordinary families trying to make a go of living in Ireland. "That is the Ireland this Government has created, the rip-off Ireland, which has become the most expensive country in Europe. We expect social welfare recipients to be grateful, the Minister says, for €10 a week."

He added that bus fares, electricity prices and motor tax charges were increasing. "Every day we see something fresh and this Budget perpetuates it."

Mr Bruton said that in an effort to calm the nerves of backbenchers, Mr McCreevy had allocated crumbs to the local authorities. "It will still mean there will be higher costs for bin charges and rates and, of course, the development charge."

He accused the Government of cheapening the currency of political debate, adding that it had produced decentralisation, like a rabbit out of a hat, with an election looming next June.

"When you look at the small print, €20 million is all that has been set aside to deliver decentralisation across the community. How far will that go?

"Will it be another pipe dream, like the many we have seen announced from those benches before?"

The Budget, Mr Bruton declared, was the product of a lack of courage.

"It is the product of soft-option politics, the politics that ducks responsibility, that puts off decisions, that sees opportunities but just does not bother to make the extra effort to take them on."