THERE WERE heated exchanges between Labour finance spokeswoman Joan Burton and Tánaiste Mary Coughlan during the economic debate.

Ms Burton referred to a middle-income family in her Dublin West constituency, a former civil servant married to a garda with a family of four children.

“The current cost of her mortgage is €1,450 per month. From yesterday, she is losing money from the childcare allowance and her husband and she will have a levy costing them 6.5 per cent to 7 per cent gross, or approximately 4.5 per cent after tax,” said Ms Burton. “That is in addition to the extra €2,000 the emergency budget cost them.”

Ms Burton said that the woman had remarked that the middle-income group had no voice. “That is not true,” said Ms Coughlan.

Accusing the Government of being incompetent, Ms Burton claimed the Tánaiste could not discuss the exchequer figures on Tuesday because she was “so unknowledgeable” about the state of the public finances.

“You just watch it now,” said Ms Coughlan.

Ms Burton claimed that the Government was making a scapegoat of the public sector. “Public sector reform, pay and pensions are certainly part of the solution, but the public sector did not create the property crash,” she said.

“It did not create the tax breaks that the then Minister for Finance, Deputy Brian Cowen, continued and expanded to keep the bubble growing.”

She said she had advocated last September that the banking rescue should follow the Swedish model. Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan intervened to say that the first step taken by the Swedish Government in its bank rescue plan was to guarantee the banks.

Ms Burton said that the Minister was prepared to do it on an emergency basis with Anglo Irish Bank being the centre of the rescue, not the system.

Mr Lenihan said that the second step taken by the Swedish government was to nationalise banking institutions.

Ms Burton said Mr Lenihan “knew from the minute he stepped into office that there had been extraordinary dealings in the shares of Anglo Irish Bank by one of the largest industrial companies in the State”.

Ms Coughlan said the authorities would deal with that.

Fine Gael spokesman Richard Bruton demanded a coherent five-year economic plan.

“I cannot accept the reheated stew of measures that have peppered every document for the past 10 years and which the Minister produced before Christmas as the ‘smart economy’,” he said.

The Government’s job was to govern, he said, and the Dáil was there to consider options such as how efficiencies could be achieved.

Sinn Féin spokesman Arthur Morgan said that Mr Cowen’s announcement on Tuesday had “cemented the perception that, unfortunately, the Taoiseach is incapable of recognising the real issues and is simply fixated on targeting our public workers and our frontline services”.

Mr Morgan said: “It is through rescuing the economy that we can shore up our finance deficit.”