Reaction:Opposition parties yesterday criticised Fianna Fáil's election economic policy, asking how the party could promise billions of euro of extra promises while cutting spending growth in half.
Fine Gael's finance spokesman Richard Bruton said the policy represented "the first chapter in its next book of broken promises" and failed to deal with critical issues such as stamp duty reform.
"There is also no commitment by Fianna Fáil to improve the position of single-income families who have had to bear the brunt of the rapidly increasing cost of living in this country," he said. He claimed the Fianna Fáil figures for the costing of tax cuts and the assessment of the exchequer balance were at odds with the published Department of Finance figures, and called on the party to explain the difference.
Labour's finance spokeswoman Joan Burton said the economic plan had no credibility in view of the Government's record of endless broken promises over the past 10 years.
The suggestion that current expenditure growth can effectively be cut in half strained credibility "even more so when you consider the lavish promises made by the Taoiseach of extensive additional public services in his ardfheis address", she said.
Ms Burton said either Fianna Fáil was secretly planning post-election cutbacks - as it did in 2002 - or was not serious about implementing its promises. "The public accepted the assurances by Fianna Fáil in advance of the 2002 election that there would be no cutbacks in services. Fianna Fáil and the PDs betrayed the trust of the election by imposing a wide range of cutbacks once the election was over. The electorate is likely to be far more sceptical on this occasion."
Green Party finance spokesman Dan Boyle said Fianna Fáil's economic costings were typical of the "facing two ways approach" that the party has been so adept at.
He said that on the one hand Fianna Fáil was promising that the good times would continue to roll but on the other it was saying the national debt, untouched in absolute terms for the past number of years, would begin to be reduced by a considerable amount.
"In the run-up to the last general election Fianna Fáil similarly swamped the voters with milk and honey promises. Once that election was over though, it was followed by an immediate period of financial retrenchment with many of those spending promises being put on to a back-burner."