The three main Opposition parties have accused the Minister for Finance of manipulative accounting to present the best face on the Book of Estimates. The Fine Gael spokesman on finance, Mr Michael Noonan, said that even a cursory glance at the Estimates revealed that the Minister, Mr McCreevy, shifted £409 million of current expenditure from 1998 to 1997 to meet his spending targets.
Describing this exercise as "creative accounting", Mr Noonan said the reality was that gross current spending for 1998 was planned to increase by 6.5 per cent over 1997. In addition, unlike the previous government, the Minister had not announced his post-budget spending targets. It seemed clear that he would have little scope for meaningful social welfare increases to assist the poor and the marginalised in our society.
Despite the significant increase in current spending, the Government, at a time of unprecedented growth, could find only £40 million for improved non-pay expenditure on the health service, while non-pay spending on education was set to fall in 1998.
Mr Noonan welcomed the £100 million allocation to the Education Investment Technology Fund but criticised the inadequate increase of £11 million in the provision for hospital building, equipment and furniture.
The former minister for finance, Mr Ruairi Quinn of the Labour Party, said that Mr McCreevy's first Book of Estimates represented a major departure from the rhetoric of his opposition days.
Having redefined current spending to make his own targets relatively easy to achieve, Mr Quinn claimed, capital spending was up 17.5 per cent rather than Fianna Fail's self-imposed 5 per cent ceiling. Huge amounts of money had been brought forward from 1998 to 1997. In total, £308 million had disappeared out of the Government's coffers.
Even assuming limited additional expenditure on Budget day, the overall increase would come in at over 7 per cent - 3 per cent above the commitment in the Government's programme.
He concluded that the Minister had sunk to new lows to massage the figures.
The Democratic Left spokesman, Mr Pat Rabbitte, maintained that the Minister had manipulated the Estimates in a fashion never before experienced "whereby he exploits the unprecedented revenue buoyancy to dole out hundreds of millions this year that ought properly be provided for in the 1998 expenditure".
The main purpose of Mr McCreevy's "manipulation of accounting practices" was to artificially represent his spending targets for 1998.
