It was a "funny money" Budget. The kind of figure-juggling that used to drive the Minister for Finance mad when he sat on the Fianna Fβil backbenches and Charlie Haughey was in charge. Mr McCreevy dipped into the social insurance fund; ripped off a euro windfall due to the Central Bank; brought forward corporation tax payments and emerged, triumphant, with a technical surplus for next year.
It you enjoy playing with mirrors or the pleasures of the three-card trick, it was a virtuoso performance. In all, the Minister conjured up a whopping 2 billion euros from the three sources and announced he would not be borrowing in 2002. Not only that, he would be salting away 1 per cent of GNP in the national pensions fund. An Exchequer surplus of 170 million euros was promised.
The bad news was that funny money doesn't last. And profligate spending always comes home to roost. But Mr McCreevy didn't go there. The Budget was shamelessly aimed at winning the coming general election. Why should the Minister admit he was stacking up deficits of almost three and four billion euros in 2003 and 2004? Forget about his commitment to keep increases in Government spending to 4 per cent a year. This year, current spending rose by 23 per cent. And if their boat comes in and they win the election they will, chortled the Minister, be drinking "loads of champagne" in the Dβil after the summer.
It didn't stop there. There were hints of another stroke as we approach the election. The Central Bank has already been put on notice that the Minister wants some of its surplus reserves - apart from the euro money - in the coming year. And there is no knowing where the money will be bunged.
Government spending was rising rapidly. Income was static. But the election was less than six months away. And the electorate had to be mollified. To make capital investments appear larger than they were, the Minister used the partial Estimates from last November for comparison purposes, rather than last week's up-to-date figures. It was pathetic.
The same hooky approach was reflected in Mr McCreevy's alternating use of currencies. Although the Budget was to have been delineated in euros, when it came to telling pensioners, mothers and the unemployed about their increases, he reverted to punts.
Better than that, for technical reasons, some of the increases will be paid as lump sums from February to May.
The same sort of timing will hold true for the income tax cuts, worth half a billion. New tax certs will be issued by the Revenue in mid-February and, some time after that, employers will pass on the back-dated benefits.
Mr McCreevy protested that he didn't favour only the better off in the Budget. He didn't. He simply favoured them disproportionately. New tax breaks were introduced for the construction of private hospitals; tax relief schemes were extended and investment in private rental accommodation was encouraged.
The standard rate of VAT was jacked back up to 21 per cent with the justification that "we need to maintain revenue from indirect taxes if we are to be serious about reducing the burden of other taxation on effort and enterprise". It was quintessential McCreevy. And, just in case the EU took exception to what had been done, he said the Government would "listen to fair advice but we decide ultimately what is best for Ireland". Jim Mitchell came out roaring. His first Budget day as Fine Gael's finance spokesman had to go well. Never had figures been so inaccurate, he declared. It was a funny-money operation and, by this time next year, he would be running a deficit of €5 billion. Thankfully, it would be the Minister's last budget.
It was a miracle Budget in which the Minister for Finance had turned water into wine and disguised the collapse in the Government's finances. After a few more cuts at the Minister's creative accounting, Mr Mitchell relapsed into a prepared script and plodded through the Government's financial record on housing, transport, health and infrastructure.
With more time to prepare, Derek McDowell had a cutting edge. The Labour Party spokesman went for the jugular. The Budget, he declared, was a lie, a fraud and a disgrace. The Minister was taking money illegally from the social insurance fund, when he needed legislation to justify it, and he would hear all about it from the ICTU.
For Mr McCreevy to talk about financial management was a nonsense. He was, Mr McDowell declared to chortles of mirth, the Fabien Barthez of Irish politics. He might not have to borrow in this Budget, but he had ensured his successors would be forced into that position. As for the 10-year National Health Strategy, he had provided 2 per cent of the projected funding in the first year, which showed where his priorities lay.
It was the Minister's fifth Budget. And the wildest. But it was typical of him, at a time when the public finances are in rag order, to cut the betting tax from 5 to 2 per cent.