Minister for Finance Brian Cowen said yesterday he was committed to pursuing low tax policies but reiterated this depended on economic performance.
He also launched a stinging attack on the Opposition's pre-election pledges on tax, describing them as "unsustainable".
Speaking on the sidelines of an EU finance ministers meeting in Brussels, Mr Cowen said the Government had delivered low taxes where previous administrations had failed.
He was committed to continuing low taxation as part of the policy mix, while other parties only talked about it.
They had even opposed his tax cuts in the past, he pointed out.
In a reference to the Labour Party, Mr Cowen said it had extinguished 40 years of conviction in just 40 seconds by pledging to reduce the lower rate of tax to 18 per cent.
He said there was an issue of credibility for the Opposition on taxation.
"We have made major changes, all of which practically have been opposed by the alternative government, who opposed all of this, so we changed the rates, we did all that, we were told we were doing the wrong thing and now we are being told by these converts that we were right all the time," he said.
Mr Cowen also stressed the main challenge for the economy was not tax but to deliver the National Development Plan (NDP), which committed €184 billion to Ireland's future.
"We have always been supportive of the role that low taxation has played incentivising the type of economy that we have today that brought unprecedented employment and investment.
"If we can maintain the growth to implement our NDP, and we have to get the 1 per cent on Gross National Product on future pensions cost, then after that, if there are issues as to how to implement new services or room for continuing low taxation, we would look at it in that context."
He said the NDP was more ambitious than any development plan that the State had ever experienced, even when compared to the changes implemented by Seán Lemass during the 1960s.
"There are far greater resources being applied [now]," said Mr Cowen.
"It is the most ambitious development plan that this country has ever contemplated."
Mr Cowen refused to be drawn on the specifics of the tax strategy that Fianna Fáil would unveil in the run-up to the election, or whether the party could go into coalition with the Progressive Democrats, who have already pledged to cut the top rate of income tax to 38 per cent.