The Budget was strongly defended by the Tβnaiste.

Ms Harney was responding, during the resumed Budget debate, to Mr Phil Hogan (FG, Carlow-Kilkenny) who claimed that the Government had cooked the books.

She said that there had been five years of benefits from the Government's budgetary arithmetic.

"I am not cooking the books. When one cooks the books, one conceals what is happening.

The Government is not doing that."

Reference had been made to fraud and deceit, said Ms Harney. "The Minister put on the record yesterday, in a clear, open and transparent fashion, how the money will be raised.

It is there in black and white; it is not concealed."

She said that when the social insurance fund was in deficit in the 10 years to 1996, £2 billion was put into it by the Exchequer.

"Is it reasonable at a time when there is a surplus to use that money wisely, not for day-to-day spending, or to fritter it away, but to help to complete the capital programme necessary to make this a country of which we can all be proud?"

She added that in Mr Ruair∅ Quinn's last Budget as Minister for Finance, he was fully prepared to put the social insurance fund in deficit to the tune of some £80 million to meet his budgetary arithmetic.

"It did not happen, because there was a change in government, employment grew and the fund ended up marginally in surplus," Ms Harney declared.

Mr Pat Rabbitte (Labour, Dublin South West) said that not only had Mr McCreevy manipulated the figures, but in major areas of policy he was caught looking both ways.

"The most dramatic reversal of engines is in the provision of housing where people are suffering so much in hugely overpriced private rented accommodation and are in despair in lengthening queues for public housing," Mr Rabbitte insisted.

He added that Mr Quinn, despite facing an election, brought in a sound Budget, showing a surplus for the first time in the history of modern Budgets.

"Mr McCreevy proceeded for four years to distribute wealth upwards and now bequeaths, by his own forecast, a most difficult situation for a new administration."

He added that the Minister, "at the expense of his own reputation for being a straight talker, has attempted, by raiding the poor box, to conceal the true state of the economy."