Outgoing Fianna Fáil Minister for Finance Jack Chambers accused his former Fine Gael Government partner Paschal Donohoe of being disingenuous in his criticism of the Fianna Fáil election manifesto.
Mr Donohoe, who as Minister for Public Expenditure helped frame the last budget alongside Mr Chambers, said Fianna Fáil’s calculations left a lot to be desired and threw up a number of questions around costing.
Speaking on Virgin Media’s Tonight Show, Mr Chambers said he “emphatically rejected” the claims, and that the figures had been calculated in consultation with the finance and public expenditure departments.
“The statement from Paschal Donohoe is disingenuous and misleading and we can fully set out the detail as we have in our manifesto,” he said.
On the same programme, Mr Chambers also raised eyebrows when he said “people are fed up with legacies like the Children’s Hospital” and became embroiled in a heated exchange with outgoing Minister of State Hildegarde Naughton of Fine Gael.
Ms Naughton said she was “getting flashbacks” from when Fine Gael had to “clean up the mess” left behind by Fianna Fáil in 2011, following the financial crash.
The on-air hostilities led Labour’s Ged Nash to say people watching “see this for what it is – it’s handbags between two Government parties. All this week they’re sniping at one and other and that just illustrates that there’s actually very little policy difference between them.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Mr Donohoe accused Fianna Fáil of inflating figures in its manifesto by as much as €5.2 billion.
“A close examination of the Fianna Fáil manifesto throws up a number of questions that simply cannot be ignored,” he said, in remarks that appeared to escalate electioneering tensions between the two dominant Government partners.
He questioned what new Fianna Fáil policies would yield the necessary additional revenue.
“If there is an explanation of where and how this additional €5.2 billion will materialise, we need to hear about it. I’m calling on Fianna Fáil to make the details of these assumptions known.”
In response, Fianna Fáil issued its own statement saying both Fine Gael and Sinn Féin had levelled “wild attacks” that misrepresented Fianna Fáil’s platform, and insisted its figures stood up to scrutiny, setting out its calculations in detail.
“If Fine Gael wishes to argue against basic economics and claim that the additional spending and growth will not lead to any additional revenue, then we look forward to them explaining why all budgets they have introduced used a similar approach,” the party said.
The tax compliance estimates it was relying on, the statement continued, were “in line with the scale of the projected yields that Paschal Donohoe himself pencilled in as minister for finance”.
“In addition please also note that very high reserve of €20 billion in a full year which we have provided in budgetary reserves separate to the surpluses and rising capital reserves. The fact is that our plans are balanced, ambitious and responsible.”
Fianna Fáil said it was the only major party to put forward detailed, costed and funded plans, assessed by the Department of Finance and other relevant departments.
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