Minister for Finance Brian Cowen has rejected Opposition claims that the Government had mismanaged public finances.
In a staunch defence of the Government's actions on the third anniversary yesterday of its election, Mr Cowen said there had been a real improvement in public services.
He highlighted the planned introduction of "fundamental changes in the way public sector construction contracts are carried out" with tendering on the basis of fixed price lump sum contracts, as well as decoupling professional fees from project costs.
Speaking during a Labour party private members' motion on the "shocking waste of taxpayers' money" on capital investment projects, Mr Cowen said he believed the changes would "radically improve the management of capital programmes and projects".
However, Labour's finance spokeswoman Joan Burton highlighted cost overruns on a number of Government projects including medical cards for the over 70s and road building programmes where she said the primary routes improvement scheme had gone from a proposed investment of €5.6 billion to a completion estimate of €15.6 billion. She highlighted a number of projects with major cost overruns that featured in an RTÉ Prime Time programme.
Ms Burton claimed that the Government had turned the wasting of resources into an art form. "If there was an Oscar for waste, Bertie Ahern would win it hands down every year," she said.
Rejecting the criticism Mr Cowen pointed out that when the Government came into office it had to introduce a railway safety programme before a railway investment programme could be started, because of the state the rainbow coalition had left the railways in.
Mr Cowen said that "of course there have been instances over the years that could have been managed better", but he said that very often "it can be many years before a project moves from concept to 'tender' stage, and it is ridiculous to compare estimates at both these stages".
The key benchmark was the tender price and the Comptroller & Auditor General's report had shown that less than 20 per cent of cost overruns was due to cost underestimation.
Minister for Transport Martin Cullen said that some of the project estimates highlighted on the RTÉ programme dated back to the early 1990s and concepts that were very different from those subsequently implemented.
Earlier, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny said, there had been an "appalling waste and misuse of public funds.
"The Minister for Finance has failed in his central duty to give value for the people's money - a bang for their buck - and the Government has failed to be one of competency and professionalism or to deliver major projects on time and on budget".
