The Minister for Finance today challenged the main opposition parties to
set out their budgetary plans for the next five years should they be elected to Government.
Mr Charlie McCreevy said the public was confused about what different parties were promising in terms of spending and taxes.
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In a document entitled "Back to the 80s", Mr McCreevy accused Fine Gael and Labour of promising all things to all people.
He said if a Rainbow coalition was returned to Government the country would return to the failed policies of the 1980s.
But Labour leader Mr Ruairí Quinn said Fianna Fáil could ill afford to talk about the 80s because era was best remembered for Ansbacher, Ray Burke and Charles Haughey.
Mr Quinn said: "It’s generally conceded, even by Micheal Martin, that part of our problem started with the strip-out of health facilities in 1987."
"And in that Government in which Mr Ahern was a member, of which Mr Burke was a member, we now know money was being salted away goodo in Ansbacher accounts by many prominent supporters of the Fianna Fáil party."
Fine Gael said Mr McCreevy was making yet another desperate attempt to divert debate away from the real issues of health, crime, housing and childcare, because he knows that Fianna Fáil’s performance in each of these areas has been indefensible.
Fine Gael’s Mr Alan Dukes said: "They are also afraid to confront the reality that over the past few years they have consistently and spectacularly failed to adhere to their own current spending targets.
He said the party’s economic framework document had been independently assessed by the Department of Finance and the projections deemed reasonable.
"This economic framework, along with our election manifesto, provide sufficient material for any evaluation. We have no objection to all party programmes being vetted by any independent third party," said Mr Dukes.
But Mr McCreevy called on the Opposition to publish three simple facts: how much extra they will spend, how much they will give away in tax and how much extra they will raise in taxes.
"This will enable the public to see what each party’s bottom line is," he said.
The Minister accused Fine Gael of "deliberately throwing up a smokescreen" and said it could not deliver on its promises without creating a "black hole" in the public finances.
He said: "Labour was deliberately keeping its head down – hoping that people won’t notice that they are proposing levels of spending which would scare people.
"Let’s all be transparent and accountable, let’s set out the facts and let people judge," he said.
