Ahern claims good start on promises

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern claimed that the Government had made a good start in implementing its promises.

"Of course, the Fianna Fáil election programme, and the agreed programme for government, are for five years, not for one."

He said some of the outside commentary of recent weeks might have led people to believe that there would be quite a different sort of budget. "We have no recession. There are no cutbacks of any significance. There are no stealth taxes."

Mr Ahern said the Budget was for a State that was continuing to do remarkably well. "Despite this, many people are anxious to emphasise only the negative side, the problems and challenging structural deficiencies, which the Government is addressing.

"Many of the critics, inside and outside this House, are not willing even to acknowledge, let alone praise, the amount of progress being made on so many fronts, of which the public are very aware."

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said the Budget had no courage or vision, and would not live up to the confidence expressed by the Government.

"The Minister for Finance has had a favourable press for quite some time. If he was serious about being seen as the Iron Chancellor I would have thought he would have measured up in his fourth budget to making some difficult decisions."

Claiming that Mr Cowen had "funked" every difficult decision that faced him, he said the easy option of borrowing €5 billion was taken to balance the books.

"If the Minister for Finance were serious about setting out his charge of leading the Government half way through its tenure of office, or whenever, one might have expected that he would at least have taken the decisions that had to be made for the future."

An alarming consequence of the Budget, said Mr Kenny, was that in the face of a modest slowdown in the economy the public finances had plunged precipitously, turning a €2.3 billion exchequer surplus in 2006 into a €4.9 billion borrowing requirement next year. This would require at least €16 billion in borrowing over the next three years.

Labour leader Eamon Gilmore accused Fianna Fáil of a "monumental breach" of the promises made in the last election. The Minister for Finance had delivered none of the 4,000 extra teachers.

Mr Gilmore asked about the 2,000 extra gardaí and the doubling of capitation funding for schools. There was no money in the Budget for the promised 2,000 extra hospital consultants.

"The Budget constitutes an admission of economic incompetence on behalf of the Minister for Finance. That a finance minister should see it as necessary to change the stamp duty regime twice in six months is an extraordinary admission of bad judgment."

© 2007 The Irish Times

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times