The Fine Gael spokesman on finance, Mr Michael Noonan, said it was "more like bonfire night than Budget night". He said the Minister "like an unsupervised youngster piles more fuel on the fire to see how high the flames can shoot", adding that he could not help recalling the expansionary budgets of the late 1970s and the grief of the 1980s when payback time arrived.
"We must never forget the simple rules of economics. If demand outstrips supply, there are foreseeable consequences, some of which can be severely damaging to the economy. The Minister is spending £1.15 billion more than was spent in 1997 on various Government programmes."
Consumer demand would be increased, said Mr Noonan. "I am not so much afraid that this expansionary Budget will immediately lead to inflation as that it will stimulate growth to a point where the resources of the economy can no longer provide for its needs."
Mr Noonan said he was particularly concerned about the housing market, the chaotic traffic conditions and the increasing skill-shortages.
"This expansionary Budget will exasperate the difficulties in all of the three areas," he said.
Mr Noonan added that if the Minister had stuck to the commitment he had made in the Programme for Government, he would have had an additional £700 million at his disposal for tax relief and debt reduction.
Mr Noonan claimed the hand of the PDs could be seen in the income tax arrangements. "They are unfair, they are unjust. Those who have most get most, and the poor wage-earner at the bottom of the scale is still left floundering around with his £3 a week."
If you were poor, said Mr Noonan, you received £3 a week, "the price of a pint of lager and the bus fare home". If you were well off, you received £1,200 a year.
He said that the applause from the Government backbenchers reminded him of a scene from a Victorian novel where distant and impoverished relatives were unexpectedly informed that they were the beneficiaries of a huge inheritance and they applauded the solicitor who read out the will.
The novel usually continued with the dissolute and spendthrift relatives scattering their inheritance to the four winds in the shortest possible time through foolhardy and improvident action, he added.
