The Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, supports the Taoiseach's statement that there will not be a general election until next year.
Mr McCreevy said on RTE News he wanted to introduce one more budget to fulfil promises made in the Coalition's programme for government.
"The Taoiseach and Tanaiste . . . have said on repeated occasions the election will not be held until the summer of 2002 and that's when the election will be held," he said.
"We've set out a programme for government and we have fulfilled a lot of it. We have repeatedly said we're going to go before the people and say, `Here's what we promised we'd do, here's what we've done and now judge us.' We'll be going for a mandate on that basis."