The Exchequer returns for 2006 show a significant improvement in the Government's finances with a surplus of €2.265 billion, some €415 million more than expected.
This compares to an Exchequer deficit of €499 million in 2005 and a budgeted deficit of €2,927 million.
A greater than expected tax take for the year contributed to the healthy balance on the Government's books.
Richard Bruton, Fine Gael
Today's figures published by the Department of Finance show tax receipts increased by 15.8 per cent, with total receipts amounting €46.145 billion.
Tax Revenue for 2006 stood at €45.539 billion, almost €4 billion ahead of what was budgeted for. Year on year tax receipts were up 16.0 per cent compared to a budgeted increase of 6.1 per cent.
In November last year alone, tax revenues overshot budgetary forecasts by €1.7 billion as the Government's monthly tax take set a new record of €10 billion.
Non-tax revenue for the year was €606 million.
Capital receipts for 2006 amounted to €1,871 million compared with €995 million for 2005. The year-on-year variation is accounted for by an increase in Feoga and Cohesion Fund receipts together with receipts from the sale of state property and the sale of Aer Lingus.
Commenting on the results for the year, Minister for Finance Brian Cowen said: "The nation's debt now represents less than 25 per cent of our income compared to nearly 120 per cent twenty years ago.
"The extra resources generated by unparalleled economic growth since 1997 have gone to improve public services and infrastructure all round, reduce the tax burden on all persons and, in particular, on the lower paid and provide for future pensions through lower debt and increased contributions to the National Pensions Reserve Fund set up by this Government.
"We are now able to provide for Exchequer expenditure on Government services in 2007 in the region of €56 billion," he added.
Fine Gael finance spokesman Richard Bruton accused Fianna Fáil and the PDs of "playing roulette with the economy" by ramping up Government spending when he said they "should be trying to secure our economic future".
"The figures today confirm that Fianna Fáil increased taxation by 16 per cent in 2006, an increase of almost three times more than Finance Minister Brian Cowen said he needed when he framed the 2006 Budget, and representing an extra €3,850 million.
"Fianna Fáil and the PDs have got into such poor spending habits that even sums of this enormity are swallowed up like small change by a Government that has expanded spending at a rate 50 per cent faster than the growth in the economy in recent years," he said.
"The tax outturn figures for 2006 confirm that this Government has raised a greater proportion of national income in tax than any government since 1990 before the tiger economy hit these shores.
Joan Burton, Labour Party
"It has entirely undone the work of the governments of the 1990s which used economic growth as an opportunity to reduce its demands on ordinary people to pay tax.
Mr Bruton said the figures revealed "patterns of a fiscal policy which is simply not sustainable".
"Worse still the legacy of Fianna Fáil and the PDs is to leave behind patterns of public spending which are simply not delivering value for money. The opportunity to introduce significant reform at a time of plenty was spurned. Those most dependent on public services have borne the cost."
Labour's finance spokeswoman Joan Burton said the figures "beggar belief".
"The gap between the figures forecast in last year's Budget, and the outturn published today is quite simply enormous," she said.
"A projected exchequer deficit of €2.2 billion, has been turned into a surplus of €2.9 billion. In other words, Minster Cowen got his sums wrong by €5,192,000,000," she said.
"We are supposed to believe that this represents clever economic management. It is anything but. It represents a serious failure of forecasting and financial management.
"Had the Minister gotten his sums right, he could have used part of that €5.2 billion to either reduce taxation, or to improve public services. Instead, he has 'accidentally' collected more, and spent less, than he could have. Errors of this magnitude come close to making a mockery of the entire Budget process," Ms Burton said.
