The Government has turned the Republic into a "harder, coarser" place by allowing market forces to become too dominant, Fine Gael's policy director, Mr Richard Bruton, told his party's ardfheis last night.
Mr Bruton accused the Fianna Fáil/PD Coalition of wasting the boom years and pledged that Fine Gael in government would reinstate political values in a bright and generous way and knit back together a community where people looked out for one another.
Maintaining there was high public spending but poor public services, he said: "Never did a government spend so much to achieve so little."
Government policy had created a consumer cocoon in a jungle of poor public services.
He said the Republic ranked fourth-last of the 30 OECD countries as regards the level of penetration of broadband technology, behind Mexico and Poland.
The ham-fisted handling of the telecommunications sector meant that Ireland had a yawning deficit in this critical infrastructure for future competitiveness.
While the Government had urged people to get out and party during the economic boom, the frivolous talk was reflected in frivolous policies. Numerous casualties had been left behind.
Health services had deteriorated, aggressive violence on the streets had increased, the task of parenting was more difficult, homelessness levels had risen and traffic policy had collapsed.
The frivolous policies had led to the abandonment of prudent public spending policies.