The Opposition last night pointed to the fall in tax revenue and continued high current spending as evidence that the public finances were "in crisis" and that the Government was "cooking the books" before the election.

Fine Gael's finance spokesman, Mr Jim Mitchell, highlighted the increase in total current spending by 20.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2002 over the same period last year.

"It does not take an expert to see that this rate of spending cannot be sustained and that the Government has lost any semblance of control over the public finances," he said.

Despite the sharp increase, the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy said the rate of annual increase was moderating. "Spending plans by Departments are being monitored to ensure that these come in on target," he said.

Labour's finance spokesman Mr Derek McDowell concentrated on the fall in tax revenues by 2 per cent, compared with the Budget day forecast by Mr McCreevy of an 8.6 per cent rise for this year.

"Today's figures place an increased onus on Fianna Fáil to indicate how it is going to pay for its increased array of election promises," said Mr McDowell.

However, Mr McCreevy said economic recovery was expected later this year, and that this should lead to increased tax revenues later in 2002.

"In addition, a number of tax measures in the Budget, including VAT and corporation tax, have yet to be reflected in extra tax revenue."

Both Mr Mitchell and Mr McDowell said that without the one-off additions to the Exchequer of money from the Social Insurance Fund and the Central Bank, there would be a deficit of €277 million in the first quarter.

"Even with these accounting tricks, the first-quarter surplus is 60 per cent below the same period last year," according to Mr Mitchell. He claimed the Minister "has a serial problem telling it as it is".

"He cooked the books on Budget day to avoid the appearance of a Budget deficit and today he has done it again," said Mr McDowell.

The figures only showed a surplus because of "pre-election window dressing", he maintained.

Meanwhile, EU-wide jobless figures released yesterday showed that Ireland had the highest annual increase in unemployment among the 15 member-states.

The number out of work rose from 3.7 per cent in the year to February 2001 to 4.3 per cent to February 2002.

Ireland's rate is now the joint fifth lowest in the EU, on a par with Portugal and higher than the unemployment rates in the Netherlands (2.3 per cent in January), Luxembourg (2.6 per cent in January), Austria (3.9 per cent) and Denmark (4.2 per cent in January). Spain's 12.9 per cent remained the EU's highest rate.