LABOUR REACTION:LABOUR'S SPOKESWOMAN on finance Joan Burton said those who had made a "killing" from the Celtic Tiger would feel "relatively little pain" from the Budget, but "middle-income families have been mugged".
"Make no mistake about it, the coping classes, the PAYE sector, are the Minister's main target today," she said.
Citing the charge of €10 a passenger on short-haul flights, she told Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan: "I noticed that you managed to exempt those friends of Fianna Fáil with private jets because of course it doesn't apply to craft who carry fewer than 20 passengers."
Ms Burton derided the Green Party, which she said had effectively been told "on your bikes". Cyclists could recoup €1,000 for the cost of bicycles to cycle to work over five years, but major public projects such as the inter-connector and Metro "have been sidelined and put out to grass".
Ms Burton described the Budget as a "bonfire of the vanities" and "into the bonfire goes the National Development Plan and many of our most ambitious plans for a proper transport system.
"There's no mention of Metro North, Metro West or a train to Navan, but the road programme is there and the roads programme is kept," yet the Government would have to pay between €700 million and €900 million over the next five years in carbon levies under the Kyoto protocol, she said.
Sharply criticising the 8 cent increase per litre of petrol, she said: "Commuters have to travel many, many miles because there are no proper park and ride facilities except in south Dublin".
"Ministers will congratulate themselves on their 'tough love approach' but will Brian Cowen be able to look in the eye a family whose livelihood has been destroyed by his economic mismanagement and say to them 'I feel your pain'. Like hell you will."
Ms Burton said the €2 fuel increase would only buy "a box of firelighters", while "a bag of coal is about €17".
People losing their jobs would have to wait many more weeks to get a benefit and when they received it their qualification time would be reduced and there was nothing in the Budget to get the 80,000 unemployed back to work or training.
She said the budget was like a "Hallowe'en B movie". For Fianna Fáil it was Nightmare on Merrion Street with mood music from the shower scene in Psycho.
Mr Lenihan intended to "pretty much take the axe to child benefit and childcare and that's a bad day for a lot of women in Ireland, whether as full-time carers in the home or out at work and trying to mix working and childcare," she said.
Sinn Féin finance spokesman Arthur Morgan said the Government should have shown more foresight.
"They could have put in place a three-year plan to get the economy back on track," he said. "Instead, they engaged in a book-keeping exercise."
Mr Morgan said that the Government had only tinkered at the sidelines of the taxation system and stealth taxes, as opposed to actual overhaul, would be used to bring in money.
"In fact, he has made the situation far worse for many families, particularly those most vulnerable," he added.
"The income levy and the VAT increase are a disgraceful attack on people on low incomes. They are neither fair nor progressive."