Today's Government spending estimates for 2007 are just "mark time" figures until Budget day when the Government's real intentions on tax and spending policy will become known, the Labour Party said.
Labour's finance spokeswoman Joan Burton said that despite additional spending of close to €4bn for 2007, "huge questions remain about housing affordability, the availability of childcare, the delivery of public transport, class sizes in our schools and tackling crime in our communities".
"Those questions remain as acute as ever as these estimates offer little by way of a genuine intention to tackle them. Equally, to sustain a knowledge economy we have to provide an infrastructure which will attract and sustain highly skilled people in Ireland and enhance our economic competitiveness," she said.
Ms Burton said that just over €1bn of additional spending will be absorbed by increased public service pay and pensions.
On health, Ms Burton said Minister for Finance Brian Cowen was talking about an increase of 11 per cent on the expected outturn of planned expenditure this year.
"The truth is that about €600m of the increase is accounted for by wages and salaries for existing staff. The HSE capital spending on health has actually been cut by 2.6 per cent.
Fine Gael's health spokesman, Dr Liam Twomey, said the 2007 health estimates were " further evidence of the Government's inability to gain real delivery in the health services for the level of expenditure involved".
"Once again the Government is living up to its reputation of being a big spender but unable to deliver real improvements for users of the health services. Many of the contents of the Minister for Health's statement today are re-announcements of projects which have already been announced or are underway," he said.
"Two years ago the Minister announced a 10-point plan for A&E and two years later there are 100 more patients on trolleys than there were at that time.
Today's announcement contains precious little to comfort for those patients or those awaiting elective procedures in hospitals."
Mr Twomey said "most galling of all" was the €300 million under-spend on the previous year's estimates, which could have provided 2,000 more public health nurses, five million home help hours or 400 step-down beds.
The Green Party's finance spokesman Dan Boyle said that despite reform of the budget and estimation processes, once again the book of estimates reveals little about the Government's spending intentions for the coming year.
Mr Boyle said there was a "severe lack of a strategic approach to spending" in the book of estimates.
"This year's book of estimates is the Minister for Finance's attempt to portray himself as a friend of the disadvantaged and deprived, in contrast to the approach adopted by his predecessor Charlie McCreevy. In December he will be presenting his third budget and on the Minister's watch the richest group of citizens in the country have remained five times more prosperous than the poorest section of society.
"The risk to Irish people of living in poverty is amongst the highest in the EU and both the risk of poverty and the percentage of people living in consistent poverty have remained at the same level for the last three years."