Spending row:A major spending row over the credibility of proposed spending plans broke out yesterday between Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Labour amid charges that billions have been promised in unrealistic extra spending.
Launching an attack on the Opposition, Minister for Finance Brian Cowen said Fine Gael and Labour have already breached their promises to keep the exchequer in the black.
The two Opposition parties have so far agreed €2 billion in extra spending, and have put aside another €2.9 billion to meet post-election spending agreements.
However, Mr Cowen accused both parties of spending the money "twice and three times".
He said he refused to accept that the Opposition "have the luxury" of evading questions about their budgetary plans because they were not in power.
Fianna Fáil's figures "stack and they have been checked for the last month", he claimed, while the Opposition's proposals required tax rises, borrowings or budget deficits.
"They told us that we were going to have a balanced budget. They can't if you are going to have all this. So what falls off the table? Or maybe we are going to have higher taxes?"
He ridiculed Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte's plans to pay for the reform of stamp duty by looking "into the bottom drawer of a desk in the Department of Finance".
"There ain't €230 million in any bottom drawer of my department to pay for that proposal. If it isn't there, where is it?" Mr Cowen asked.
Fianna Fáil's stamp duty reforms, focused on first-time buyers only, would cost €44 million.
"I have a view that I can stabilise the housing market at one-fifth of the cost that they are saying that they can stabilise it at. That is a good deal for the taxpayer who wants to make up their mind on that issue," said Mr Cowen.
However, his attack was rejected by the Labour Party, which said it had agreed on 40 per cent of post-election spending increases with Fine Gael, and on a ceiling for any deals reached after the election.
"Labour and Fine Gael have set out an agreed economic framework based on data from the Department of Finance and the ESRI. We are the only two parties to have agreed such a framework.
"Fianna Fáil and the PDs have no such agreement. Indeed, they can't even agree on a macroeconomic forecast for the next five years," said Dublin West TD and party finance spokeswoman Joan Burton.
Mr Cowen also disagreed with the Opposition over its plans to supply 2,300 public hospital beds using €825 million allocated under the National Development Plan.
He said he had provided for only 500 extra beds under the NDP, though he sought to pay for 500 in his election spending plans, while 1,000 more would come from co-located private hospitals.
He said Fine Gael's Richard Bruton had said the Opposition's bed plans "are in the NDP".
"Well, they are not in the one that I published."
He said if they were to be paid for out of the development plan then other services would have to suffer.
Questioned about whether the co-location plan would survive a coalition with any party other than the Progressive Democrats, Mr Cowen insisted it was a policy Fianna Fáil wanted to see implemented.
Other parties would have to "respect the mandate that our party has achieved as well".
"There seems to be a presumption that FF voters cannot expect that their mandate is respected. There will be well over 800,000 people supporting. The mandates of other parties will be respected in proportion to their strength."
However, Fine Gael was scathing in its reply.
"The National Development Plan is not Fianna Fáil's property. We have said that public beds are one of our priorities. We will decide what to do with the NDP in a few weeks' time. Not Fianna Fáil," said its spokesman.
