THE Book of Estimates represents "a reckless gamble with the health of the Irish economy", the Fianna Fail leader, Mr Bertie Ahern, has claimed.
In a lengthy attack on the spending proposals, Mr Ahern said the "pre-election spending spree" could end up as a "suicide mission".
His criticism was the second attack by Fianna Fail in the 24 hours since the Estimates were published.
However, the chairman of the Fine Gael parliamentary party, Mr Phil Hogan, condemned what he termed the "naked opportunism and hypocrisy of the FF/PD alliances attack on Government spending estimates because they exceeded the spending guidelines"
He insisted that the 6.2 per cent Government spending increase was half the average rise in the figure for the period that Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats were in coalition between 1989 and 1992.
According to the Fianna Fail leader, total expenditure in 1997 - including current and capital spending - would be up £1,100 million or 8.1 per cent on the 1996 projections. Even on the Government's own figures, this amounted to a 4 per cent rise in real spending.
"That is not all. There is not the slightest evidence that this Government have any serious intention of imposing a pay freeze on the public sector, whose pay is already due to rise by over 6 per cent next year," he said.
Mr Ahern sharply criticised the Minister for Finance for saying that "if there are to be increases, and I do not believe that we can afford them, they will have to come out of improvements in the tax system". This, Mr Ahern said, was "not the statement of a man who is capable of holding any line for long".
A Government that was able to spend freely in so many other different directions would cut little ice with public sector workers when it tried to argue that the money was not there.
Strongly defending the Government's handling of the economy, Mr Hogan asked what was wrong with a situation which witnessed the lowest mortgage and interest rates for 30 years, low inflation, consistently high economic growth "that is the envy of the rest of Europe" and the creation of 1,000 jobs per week.
He challenged media commentators "to demand explanations from the FF/PD alliance". He suggested that the media ask the two parties "how they would limit compensation to women infected with Hepatitis C".
Exactly what prisons would they not now build? Exactly what BSE Border patrols they would do away with? What roads in what counties would they not repair? Or, alternatively, what civil servants would they make redundant or what social welfare recipients would they cut back on?" Mr Hogan asked.