Whether or not you think Mr McCreevy was correct in describing yesterday's Budget as containing "the biggest social welfare package ever granted by a Government of this country" depends on where you start counting from.
If your point of departure is the current cost of social welfare services, then Mr McCreevy can sustain his claim, because he has added £305.5 million to that cost in a full year.
In last year's Budget he added £225 million to then current costs. The year before that, his predecessor, Mr Ruairi Quinn, added £215 million.
So looked at that way, Mr McCreevy has, indeed, produced the "biggest social welfare package ever granted by a Government of this country".
One should not get carried away by this - presumably most other Ministers for Finance could have made the same claim on their Budget days.
The other way to look at this is to judge the package by its adequacy.
In September, the Cherry Orchard Concerned and Active Citizens' Group sent a modest Budget submission to the Government. What the group sought is worth comparing with what people got, because the members of the group probably know more about poverty than do the majority of economists and journalists.
First, it wanted all adults to get at least £75 a week. At present, of 28 social welfare payments, 17 are below £75 a week. From next June seven of these 17 payments will have edged over the £75 a week mark.
That's an improvement - but it is noticeable that those allowances still under £75 include such important payments as the supplementary welfare allowance, which goes to some of the neediest people in the State, and payments to one-parent families.
The Cherry Orchard group also asked that the weekly payment added on for a dependent adult (normally a spouse) be increased by £10 a year until it reaches £75. Currently this payment ranges from £41.20 a week to £56.90 a week depending on the type of benefit or pension involved and the age of the person concerned.
The £10 a week increase has not, of course, happened. Some will get an extra £3 a week and some an extra £2 a week. They will be waiting a long time to get up to £75.
It also asked for the weekly payment for the children of social welfare recipients to be increased to £20 for children under 16 years and £25 for older children. This was not increased at all, and the payments still range from £13.20 to £17 regardless of age.
Instead, the monthly, non-means-tested child benefit is being increased by £3 for each of the first two children and £4 for each subsequent child, from next September. This has the advantage that it benefits rich and poor alike. An increase in the weekly payment would have benefited only the poor.
This is not as perverse an example of targeting at it looks. Child benefit goes mainly to women, and increasing it can be seen as laudable from the standpoint of gender equality, even if it means giving, say, bankers who are mothers the same increase as is given to a struggling mother in Cherry Orchard, or Moyross or Rahoon or Mayfield.
So looked at from that point of view, Mr McCreevy's Budget cannot be seen as the greatest ever for people on social welfare.
That aspect aside, however, the Budget contains many welcome welfare provisions.
The much-vaunted £7 rise in old age pensions did not materialise but £6 is close. A married couple will get £9 between them.
For carers there has been a range of improvements. The most significant is the extension of eligibility for the carer's allowance to about 2,200 people caring for disabled children and who are already receiving a monthly domiciliary care allowance.
Also important is the extension of eligibility to about 500 carers of people aged 16 to 65 who need full-time care and attention.
Carers will be disappointed, though, that the means test has not been abolished. This would have cost £115 million a year. The failure to bring in a non-means-tested carer's benefit, based on PRSI contributions, will also disappoint carers.