The Taoiseach's pre-election promises and a denial by the Minister for Finance of any spending cuts were the "greatest deception ever perpetrated on the Irish public", Fine Gael has claimed in a sharp attack on the Government's performance in office.
Mr Ahern however insisted that it would have been a "disaster" if anybody else had been elected, as the Fine Gael leader, Mr Enda Kenny listed the promises the Taoiseach made in a television debate a year ago in the run up to the general election.
Mr Kenny had described the promises and the results as the biggest "lie" ever perpetrated but was forced to withdraw that description, on the basis that it was "unparliamentary language".
The Taoiseach had "failed the test of commitment to politics and to live up to the promises he made so solemnly last year. He has let down the integrity of politics, and ruined, for many young people, the aspiration of every owning a house", the Fine Gael leader said. In debate, with the then Fine Gael leader, Mr Michael Noonan, the Taoiseach said that street violence was a "very small aspect of crime", that Fianna Fáil would eliminate hospital waiting lists within two years and would recruit 2,000 more gardaí, Mr Kenny asserted.
A year on, at the current rate of garda recruitment "it would be 40 years before 2,000 extra gardaí are on the streets". Crime had increased from 45 incidents a day in 1996 to 117 now while hospital waiting lists had increased by 4,300 between June and September last year. No numbers had been published since he said.
The education building programme had been cut by €88 million, the national drugs funding strategy by €7 million and FÁS and community employment scheme funding was down by €86 million. The first time buyers' grant was gone and overseas aid had dropped by €40 million.
Mr Kenny quoted a Tallaght clinical nurse who said that "in the 1980s Charlie Haughey closed beds and bought shirts. In 2003 Bertie Ahern is closing beds and buying jets." In a staunch defence Mr Ahern said Ireland had the highest growth rate after China. He had promised a "stable economy" and more money for welfare, and the social exclusion fund had increased by €550 million. They had maintained employment and "we are doing extraordinarily well". There was a 7 per cent increase in public services funding and 12 per cent in education, an extra €1 billion into health and waiting lists were down to 18,000.
