Minister for Finance Brian Cowen yesterday defended the Government's record in getting value for the money spent on public projects.
He dismissed as distortions claims that many public projects went way over-budget. He said that despite the impression the Opposition wanted to give, the Comptroller and Auditor General and independent consultants, while making specific criticisms, had found that the public capital programme was in general efficiently managed.
He said critics of the Government tended to take very early estimates of the cost of a road or other project. They would compare this with the final cost, and pronounce that there had been gross waste of money. However in most cases cost increases occurred because the scale of projects had been expanded, or because costs went up naturally with time.
"I want to reject this idea that we are totally blasé with taxpayers' money. In reports from the Comptroller and Auditor General there has not been a suggestion that these jobs could have been done for less."
Speaking at a press conference at the end of Fianna Fáil's two-day parliamentary party meeting in Cavan, Mr Cowen confirmed he had warned backbenchers against expecting extra funds for a large number of their pet projects.
"As one would expect from a Minister for Finance" he told the parliamentary party that "to safeguard the very significant improvementson the economic and the social front, we need to work within a macro-economic framework that is sustainable going forward. "If you look at the 1990s the average growth rates of 7 or 8 per cent that characterised the Celtic Tiger era have been replaced by trend growth of maybe 4.6 per cent."
He said future spending plans had to be based on this reality. He had, therefore, given a "message of cautious optimism going forward that one would expect from a Minister for Finance that has to face into an estimates process to a very enthusiastic set of colleagues at both Cabinet and parliamentary party level".
He defended social partnership and the Government's approach to the public service, but said further public sector pay increases should be linked to improvements in services.
The Minister rejected claims that there had been no such improvements in the past, saying "we have had a series of modernisation programmes in the course of previous partnership deals". He said he nevertheless wanted to obtain greater productivity from the public sector.
He criticised Fine Gael for its past criticisms of social partnership, saying it had been central to Ireland's economic improvement over the past 15 years.
He commented on Tuesday's announcement by Fine Gael and Labour of a common position of supporting a reformed version of social partnership. "We are being asked to believe that the new Labour Party led by Mr Rabbitte has brought about a situation where Fine Gael are now highly supportive and enthusiastic about social partnership."