The education provisions were greeted with disappointment and sharp criticism by many groups in the sector.
The main features were an increase in funding for special needs and a €70 million (£55 million) allocation for teachers who provide supervision and substitution in schools.
The €10 million for special needs is expected to be spent on measures recommended in the recent Task Force on Autism, which arose after the Mr Jamie Sinnott case.
Voluntary secondary schools (mainly run by the religious) said the Budget had failed them.
They have long claimed that vocational and community/comprehensive schools get better funding than they do from the Government.
Their organisation, the Joint Managerial Body (JMB), said it was very disappointed there was no increase in funding for their schools.
"The Minister and his Department have failed to honour their commitment to the equalisation of funding between voluntary secondary schools and schools in other sectors," said the general secretary of the JMB, Mr George O'Callaghan.
He said the Minister for Education, Dr Woods, had publicly reiterated this commitment to equalising the funding arrangements for schools over the past year and committed himself and his Department to dealing with the issue in the context of this year's Estimates and Budget.
Dr Woods, however, said the Budget provided him with an unprecedented allocation of €5.4 billion for 2002, an increase of almost 14 per cent compared to the 2001.
H e said "this unparalleled provision will allow me to make further investment in critical areas of education. It will enable me to build further on the major progress which the Government has made at all levels of education in the past four years."
He said extra funds for 350 additional primary teachers and 200 additional second-level teachers were being provided, although this was already agreed under the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness.
The general secretary of the INTO, Senator Joe O'Toole, said the allocation of an additional €36 million for capital expenditure on primary school buildings was a step in the right direction "but a great deal more needs to be done to bring our school buildings up to an acceptable European level ".
"The increase in the level of and eligibility in the back-to-school clothing and footwear allowance will certainly be welcomed by the parents and children concerned."
The decision to allocate €70 million to supervision/substitution was noted by teacher unions. This money is there to pay £27 per hour to those who do the work, currently done on a voluntary basis.
The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) condemned Mr McCreevy for failing to address inadequate student grants and welcomed the fact it would be his last budget.
"USI believes that even more students will continue to abandon their studies because of the Minister's failure to address third-level student needs," said Mr Richard Hammond, president of USI.