The provisions of the Budget had to stand despite the European censure facing the Government, the Taoiseach said yesterday.

Mr Ahern maintained that the European contention was that Ireland should curb its capital spending programme because it was guilty of "excessive success" which was bad for the State.

He went on: "Our view is that the country has been growing at 10 per cent, the pessimistic figure this year is that it will be 7, so maybe it will be more and our argument is how do you - in a growing country with an increasing population . . . cut back on the capital programme?"