'Alcopops' package strongly criticised

This  year's Budget should be described as the "alcopops" Budget, because, while it was intended to be "relatively congenial", there was a "grave danger that we will all wake up with a serious hangover", the Labour Party leader told the Dáil.

Mr Pat Rabbitte derided the Government and its handling of the public finances, and said that the "necessity for this bitter Budget" arose from the Government's mismanagement as it "attempted to blatantly buy a general election victory at all costs".

After the "spending spree to win the election" they have "now embarked on a reversal of engines, not because of any fundamental weakness in the underlying economy, but because of their earlier recklessness".

He said that, at the end of it all, social welfare recipients would be 30 cents better off. That would not even buy a "box of matches".

Mr Rabbitte said the Government should have deferred the corporate tax drop rate for another year, which was a loss of €305 million to the Exchequer. Corporate tax had already been reduced to 16 per cent from 40 per cent and the €305 million.

In his 40 minute address, he accused the Minister for Finance of taking "grave risks" with inflation and condemned the Government for blaming the "international economic downturn", when it was a "mess of its own making".

This Government had "outrageously wasted and misspent our money in a splurge for powers.

"Now the kitty is near empty and we are being told that we have to pay for their scandalous waste. That is what lies behind the cuts."

He added that: "having spent their way through the last election, they want to build up a war chest for the next one so they can do it over again".

Sinn Féin's justice spokesman, Mr Aengus Ó Snodaigh, said that child benefit was the most scandalous element of the Minister's Budget.

Election pledges promised child benefit increases of up to €40, but it was €8, he said.

The Government had kept its commitment to reduce corporation tax. "The choice was simple, support the corporations and big business or support the poor" and the Minister had made his choice.

The Green Party leader, Mr Trevor Sargent, said the mortage interest relief provision "represents little more than a press release in terms of its value to many people".

He said they would "not get anything worth talking about in their pockets once VAT and the other clawbacks from the Budget kick in.

Ms Marian Harkin, (Ind, Sligo-Leitrim), said that first-time buyers had been dealt a bitter blow, and the 1 per cent increase in VAT would increase the price of their homes by at least €2,000, so they now had an "even bigger headache".