Budget 2008 has been criticised for a lack of ambition by the Opposition despite the radical reform of Stamp Duty by Minister for Finance Brian Cowen.
He told a packed Dail that he was framing the Budget in the context of economic growth slowing from around 4.75 per cent this year to around 3 per cent in 2008.
Fine Gael finance spokesman Richard Bruton said the slowdown had not changed Mr Cowen's outlook and Labour's finance spokeswoman Joan Bruton said if the economy was "skillfully managed" the lives of ordinary people could still be improved.
Sinn Féin finance spokesman Arthur Morgan said the Budget exposed Mr Cowen's "unrealizable pre-election promises".
The minister's "spend-and-borrow" Budget was "sloppy, self-indulgent and wasteful", Mr Bruton said. He singled out a failure to implement public service reforms and "expensive bureaucratic structures [which] parallel the civil service" for particular blame.
In his Budget fourth speech today, Mr Cowen said day-to-day spending must be brought closer to growth levels but that "a measured deceleration is required, not a sudden slamming of brakes".
Despite the €1.8 billion shortfall in the exchequer returns predicted at the start of the year, Mr Cowen's Budget was less conservative than some predicted.
Day-to-day spending went up 8.2 per cent and minimum-wage earners were kept out of the income tax net. However, he failed to keep earners on the average industrial wage out of the high rate.
But Mr Bruton insisted that an increase in current spending of the scale Mr Cowen has announced, would be regarded as generous in any other European country but will deliver little here.
"This government just passes on the bill for its incompetence by ratcheting up costs throughout the economy," Mr Bruton said.
Against a backdrop of a stagnant property market due to falling prices and big drop in home building activity, Mr Cowen announced an major overhaul of the stamp duty regime with immediate effect.
He surprised commentators by eliminating stamp duty on the first €125,000 on the price of a home with a rate of 7 per cent applying thereafter up to €1,000,000. A 9 per cent duty will be applied to the price above €1,000,000.
Labour's Joan Burton said the change was "a humiliation" for the minister.
Mr Cowen was forced into a embarrassing U-turn during the General Election campaign by promising to abolish stamp duty for all first-time buyers having previously ruled out changes.
The huge loss of stamp duty revenues contributed to the drop in Exchequer revenues towards the end of the year. The 0.9 per cent borrowing requirement announced today was "direct result" of Mr Cowen's mismanagement of the housing market, Ms Bruton said.
She said today's Budget suggested the lesson had still not been learned. "In the real world things happen. Oil shocks. Climate shocks. Wars. A sub-prime crisis. Plans for spending and taxation should take into account these huge uncertainties ... You need a contingency reserve in your plans. I just don't see one in what I heard today," she told the Dáil.
Sinn Féin's Arthur Morgan said Mr Cowen had delivered a "minimalist Budget" which would be a disappointment for workers on low and medium incomes. He said the benefit of increasing income tax thresholds and social welfare payments would be lost by the higher cost of living.
Mr Morgan criticised the €1.7 billion allocated to social housing and the failure advance a state pre-school system.
And he said the increases in child benefits "do not go nearly far enough to assist families unable to cope with childcare costs equal to a second mortgage".