A special Cabinet meeting on the forthcoming December Budget, designed to avoid a repeat of last year's damaging tax individualisation controversy, has been called by the Taoiseach.
The Irish Times has learned that Ministers have been summoned to the all-day Budget meeting in Government Buildings next Saturday.
Last year the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, was at the centre of a storm when he announced his tax individualisation plans.
It emerged afterwards that the majority of his Cabinet colleagues had not been told of the proposal in advance.
In the 1998 budget Mr McCreevy was also forced into an embarrassing climbdown over his proposals on the taxation of credit unions. The move incurred the wrath of the credit union movement and savers all over the State.
Saturday's Budget "summit" is designed to circumvent the kind of negative fall-out experienced after these budgets.
A Government source told The Irish Times that the Taoiseach was determined that the Government would get it right this year. "We cannot afford to get it wrong. That is why this will be a Budget by consultation like no other budget," the source said.
Among the issues discussed on Saturday will be taxation changes, new measures on childcare and pension increases for the elderly.
The Government source said Mr McCreevy would be listening to what his colleagues had to say, while he would also be outlining to them what he planned to do on December 6th.
"It will also give Ministers an opportunity to get projects which they had to abandon due to limits on their estimates back on the agenda for the Budget".
With the Exchequer surplus for the first nine months of the year running at £2.9 billion (€3.68 billion) compared with an initial forecast for an end-year surplus of £1.9 billion, the Government will have an extra £1 billion this year.
However, the latest inflation figure of 6.8 per cent has considerably narrowed the options open to Mr McCreevy. Inflation is now close to its peak, most economists agree, but that peak has come so late in the year that high inflation will now spill over into 2001 unless the Minister for Finance takes decisive action next month in the Budget.
The overall thrust of the Budget is still under discussion between Mr McCreevy, the Tanaiste and the Taoiseach. They are to have another pre-Budget discussion before the regular weekly Cabinet meeting today.
Mr McCreevy has already indicated that he would proceed with individualisation, meaning the widening of the tax bands, a move that would further increase the gap between single and double-income families. As a result, he would probably need to increase personal allowances.
The Tanaiste has expressed preference for cutting the standard and top rates of tax, while in various speeches Mr Ahern has said he is in favour of cutting the lower.