The two parties likely to form the next government, Fine Gael and Labour, have harshly criticised each other’s economic policies.
The row over their respective policies has escalated following the comments of Fine Gael's spokesman on finance, Michael Noonan's, on Thursday that Labour was becoming a "seriously high-tax party".
At the launch of the Labour manifesto yesterday the party leader Eamon Gilmore said Mr Noonan's criticism of Labour was "old-fashioned, out of date and wrong".
Fine Gael later responded by asserting Labour's manifesto would "damage economic growth, slow down the economy and hammer job creation".
Mr Gilmore denied Labour was a high-tax party, saying it would not increase income tax for individuals earning under €100,000. He said Fine Gael's €16 billion fiscal package had a "black hole" of €8 billion because the growth projections were based on an out-of-date paper produced by the ESRI in the middle of 2010.
He also accused Fine Gael of including stealth taxes in its plans. He instanced a €21 cut per month in child benefit for a family with two children.
Fine Gael today said Mr Gilmore's claims were "entirely false" and it said it had only based its growth projections from 2014-2016 onwards on the ESRI projections. It projections for the period from now until 2014 were based on the same Department of Finance figures being used by Fianna Fail, it said.
Front bench spokesman Leo Varadkar insisted Fine Gael's projections for between now and 2014, the "period of consolidation", the period of the IMF plan, were based on Department of Finance growth figures from November/ early December 2010.
"They are the same ones used by Fianna Fail. They are pretty much the same ones used by Labour. I think they used ones that are a tiny little bit optimistic, but only a tiny bit. So the claim that Eamon Gilmore has made is entirely false. His facts are entirely wrong.
"We have used the low-growth ESRI from 2014 to 2016 onwards and the reason why we did that is because there are no Department of Finance figures for that period."
In a statement last night, Mr Noonan repeated his claim that Labour was now "officially a high-tax party" and that its policies would damage the economy. "The Labour Party is clearly going back to its old ways with a top rate of tax of 55 per cent. This will damage entrepreneurship, job creation and foreign investment in Ireland.
"Labour's plans for a Tobin Tax on international transactions will tax the 30,000 jobs in the IFSC out of existence," he said.
The Green Party also launched its election manifesto yesterday, putting job creation as its main priority.
Meanwhile, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin said he would now forgo a ministerial severance package of almost €90,000.
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