Minister 'turned wine into water', misspent way into crisis - Mitchell

The Fine Gael spokesman on finance, Mr Jim Mitchell, said the Minister had turned "wine into water" in the Budget.

Addressing Mr McCreevy, he said: "The Budget has all the hallmarks of Fianna Fβil in the 1977-1982 period during which they turned a sound economy into a basket case. I had believed that those GUBU years were forever in the past. They are back. Fianna Fβil has, once again, misspent its way into a crisis.

"After their last reckless splurge, it was Fine Gael and the Tallaght strategy that came to the rescue. I had thought that the benefits of sound finances had been learned by all. Despite this gigantic waste of public money, there remains so many glaring gaps in our public service." Mr Mitchell said there were 27,000 people on hospital waiting lists; 120,000 people on housing waiting lists, more than double 1997 figures. Any individual receiving £101 (€128) or more per week received no medical card, which meant they had to pay £25 of their weekly income for a visit to the doctor.

There were more traffic jams, and more gridlock, directly as a result of the Government's traffic policy, with greatly increased journey times, stress, air pollution and the enormous economic cost, he added.

"No matter how one analyses the issue, the sum total of the Minister's reign is that he has made a fine mess of things. That is not to say that the parties in the present Government have not made a significant contribution to the economic miracle known as the Celtic Tiger.

"But he has crash-landed our economy which, since before he took the helm, was already flying high."

The Minister, said Mr Mitchell, had, as usual, thrown money at the problems in the health service. "My party does not object to money being spent - we object to money being spent without results." While the Minister had announced additional capital for health, the 98-bed extension to Mullingar General Hospital remained unoccupied and had not even been fitted out. It was now expected to cost £43 million to open. If it had been opened as originally planned, in 1997, it would have cost £11 million, said Mr Mitchell.

He added that after five years of unparalleled prosperity, many citizens lived in a twilight zone. Despite the prosperity, life was not good.

"Female participation in the workplace is at its highest level since the foundation of the State. There are now over 300,000 families where both spouses work, some by choice, but many because the cost of housing has exceeded the capacity of many single-income families.

"Two years ago, through the process of individualisation, you gave further incentives for both spouses to work. Now, of course, that reform has come back to haunt not you but those families where one spouse faces the prospect of redundancy in these more troubled economic times, because these families, these real people, face not only the loss of one income, but also an increased tax bill because of your programme of individualisation.

"When you reformed the system, you were not thinking about real people - you were thinking about economic concepts such as participating units in the workforce. You, and the Government in which you serve, are out of touch with these, the real people of our country."