Fianna Fáil has accused Fine Gael and Labour of "making massive promises but trying to hide the overall cost".
Prior to the launch of a joint Fine Gael-Labour economic plan yesterday, Fianna Fáil called a news conference to issue a "prebuttal" document criticising the two main opposition parties.
The document, with the ironic title of Make Prosperity History, presents Fianna Fáil's analysis of what it claims were Fine Gael and Labour promises in the period 2002-2007.
However, Fine Gael senator Brian Hayes in turn accused Fianna Fáil of making a "desperate attempt" to undermine the Fine Gael-Labour launch in advance. A Labour spokesman dismissed the Fianna Fáil document as "laughable".
Asked why the party chose to pre-empt the Fine Gael-Labour publication, Minister for Communications Noel Dempsey said: "We are going into an election campaign. The public need to know. They know exactly where Fianna Fáil stands, where we stand on the economy, what tax measures we are going to have, what we are going to put in place. They need to know the same from Fine Gael and Labour."
The Fianna Fáil document says "if Fine Gael and Labour have been honest over the past five years in what they have said they will do, and in what they have condemned the Government for not doing, then the two parties should today be outlining plans of how they intend to spend anything between €14 billion and €34 billion extra every year for the next five years."
The Fianna Fáil document purports to present the spending plans which it says Fine Gael and Labour should have been launching yesterday.
"If they implemented every one of the 100 promises outlined here, it would cost an incredible €34 billion per annum. If you assume they will break their promise to reach European averages of social, education and other spending, the bill is still a huge €14.14 billion per annum - equal to €10,000 extra in spending per taxpayer every year."
Giving Fine Gael's reaction to the document, Mr Hayes accused the main Government party of making a "desperate attempt to undermine the launch of a comprehensive, fully costed, five-year programme by Fine Gael and Labour".
A Labour spokesman said: "This is a laughable attempt to divert attention away from the groundbreaking [ Fine Gael-Labour] document. Fianna Fáil got away with this sort of thing in 2002, they won't get away with it on this occasion."
