The blame for the Government's current difficulties over its election promises was laid at the door of the media yesterday by the Minister for Finance.
Asked about charges that the public believes it was misled, Mr McCreevy told RTÉ's This Week: "I certainly would agree with you that that is the media's perception. The governments in Ireland, the United Kingdom and Germany have all run into difficulties with popular opinion following their re-election over the last two years.
"I have concluded from all of this that when governments are re-elected the media and the public largely take it out upon them. It is something that we just have to get on with," he declared.
However, he conceded that opinion polls reflected public unhappiness since the election last year. "There is a certain angst amongst the people out there."
Asked about the state of the Exchequer's finances, Mr McCreevy insisted that government spending was under control.
"We intend being in government for five years. We intend doing the right thing. It would be easy to do the easy thing and politicians the world over - not least in this country - would like to take the soft option," he said.
Though under control, government spending was rising by 7 per cent "which no other country in Europe can manage", while Irish workers had the highest take-home pay of any country in the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development.
Government spending had increased from €18 billion in 1997 to €38 billion, though he accepted that the health services needed reform, not just extra money.
The Minister will join the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, to present a joint plan to the Cabinet shortly to reform the service, based on the Brennan and Prospectus reports.
However, the third report dealing with the health service, the Hanly Report on staff numbers, is not going to be ready "for another month, or so".
Mr McCreevy was asked about the package secured by the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, to improve access by the poor to third-level education.
Mr McCreevy indicated that Mr Dempsey would have a battle on his hands to ensure that the full €42 million a year funding he promised would be delivered annually.
"I did not dish out €42 million to him. The additional cost would be €14/15 million this year and the additional resources will be found from unanticipated receipts."
The Minister's appearance on This Week met with the scorn of the Green Party's finance spokesman, Cork South Central TD, Mr Dan Boyle.
"The Minister for Finance still seems incapable of accepting that his policies have been the biggest contributory factor to the deteriorating state of the public finances," he said.
"The Minister has taken the ostrich approach to the public finances. This is demonstrated by the fact that he continues to threaten further public expenditure cuts, while not even considering a real programme of tax reform that would see the most wealthy in this country pay a proportionate share of tax.
"Instead of examining his role in these policies," Mr Boyle continued, "Charlie McCreevy is once again reverting to type in trying to dampen down the expectations that he and his Government have helped create, as part of the rewriting of history."
