The Taoiseach has vigorously defended his party’s Budget, saying that it was the fifth successive budget without state borrowing.
He claimed the Government had again succeeded in steering the country away from 1970s-style deficit economics.
Speaking in this morning’s debate in the Dáil, Mr Ahern described yesterday’s Budget as "caring" and "equitable" and said it would maintain international confidence in the economy at a time when the world economy was slowing down.
"Given the slowdown in the world economy this budget is a fine achievement," Mr Ahern said.
"We’ve managed for the fifth time in succession to avoid Government borrowings at a time when the Labour Party were urging us to borrow £1 bilion from the National Pension Fund. Where would confidence be today if we had followed that advice?
But Fine Gael leader Mr Michael Noonan said Mr McCreevy could not disguise the fact that the country was sliding into borrowing and deficit.
Labour leader Ruairí Quinn, accused Fianna Fáil of trying to buy votes and said the Minister for Finance should have won the Booker Prize for fiction for his budget.
Mr Alan Dukes, Fine Gael’s spokesman on Agriculture said the budget did nothing to reassure those that were anxious to own their homes and said would-be buyers could find nothing in yesterday’s budget to reassure them.