McCreevy dismisses criticism as 'hoo-ha'

Both the Minister for Finance and the Tánaiste stridently defended the Government's management of the public finances on RTÉ radio programmes yesterday.

Responding to questions about the Budget on the Today with Pat Kenny programme, Mr McCreevy insisted the public finances were being managed properly, and dismissed speculation to the contrary as "hoo-ha".

"The public finances are facing into a difficult period but I wouldn't like to give the impression that the public finances are out of control," he said. He "absolutely" denied allegations that he had failed to control Government expenditure over the past few years.

The increases in public spending growth had gone to pay for improvements in areas such health, education and pensions, as well as reducing the Republic's national debt. "We didn't pocket it back up in Merrion Street," he said.

He also hit out at criticism that the Government was managing the economy according to pro-cyclical rather than contra-cyclical principles. "I do not subscribe to the theory that in a small, open economy, you can apply text-book economics."

Earlier, Ms Harney refused to accept that the Government had delivered a "hairshirt Budget". In an interview on Morning Ireland, she also firmly rejected suggestions that the Budget had been "anti-business".

"No Government has done more for the enterprise sector than this Government," she said. The Budget had simply imposed penalties on those who could afford them most.

Mr McCreevy rejected suggestions that the Budget had delivered a "punishment levy" to the financial sector, noting that €300 million over three years was "not an excessive amount of money" compared to banks' profits. "This is not a punishment levy. This is a contribution from financial institutions that have done particularly well."

On the imposition of higher taxes on bank cards and cheques, the Minister said the logic of the move was to raise money in "as painless a way as possible". He drew attention to a survey last year which showed that 50 per cent of cardholders were unaware that bank cards attracted tax in the first place.

The Minister went on to explain that he had chosen to raise the lower rate of VAT rather than the higher rate because he wanted to minimise the impact on consumer price inflation. He justified increasing duty on diesel rather than petrol in the same manner, despite criticism that diesel was traditionally the fuel of business users.

He said he would have preferred to raise duty on so-called "alcopops" even more than 35 cents a bottle, but that he had been precluded from doing so by law.