The Minster for Finance Mr McCreevy has cooked up a recipe of economic stagnation and social exclusion in today's Book of Estimates, Opposition parties claim.
The Green Party finance spokesman Mr Dan Boyle, said today's announcement gave lie to the Government's claim that it was making spending adjustments rather than cuts.
He said the poor and the vulnerable were being made pay for the Minister's profligacy in previous years and that Ireland's economic prospects would be harmed.
"These swingeing cutbacks envisaged in these current estimates will not only damage the potential for further economic growth but crucially it will affect the more vulnerable elements in our society. The less well off will pay the price of McCreevy's earlier economic recklessness and bear the brunt of his 'hard man' attitude to economic policy.
"Charlie McCreevy has obviously decided that the poor and vulnerable are his enemy. The Minister has produced a dark and dismal book of estimates on this dark and dismal day," Mr Boyle said.
Ms Joan Burton, Labour finance spokesman said the Estimates represent a "backtracking" on election promises on social spending and are "the final chapter in an unprecedented act of betrayal by Fianna Fáil of the Irish electorate".
"As a result of these estimates, hospital waiting lists will continue to increase, local authority housing lists will grow, communities will suffer from the loss of thousands of CE [Community Employment] places, conditions in primary schools will worsen," Ms Burton said.
She also said the cuts are deeper than the Government is admitting, saying the figures "are based on hopelessly optimistic assessments of the likely out-turn for Government spending in 2002".
"When inflation is taken into account, day-to-day spending on public services is being cut by at least 5 per cent in real terms.
"The same is true of the capital programme, where the 7 per cent cuts that the Government is admitting to will actually translate into 12 per cent cuts in real terms."
She said the reductions in capital spending were at "the worst possible time" and would lead to a loss of competitiveness through a lack of investment in economic infrastructure. She said it would send the wrong signal to international investors and "condemn the country to a future of slow economic growth and future job losses".
Fine Gael Environment spokesperson, Mr Bernard Allen warned the effective cut in the allocation of money to local authorities would lead to an income tax increase "by the back door".
He said local authority finances were already in crisis and the failure by the Minister to grant an increase in line with inflation meant a reduction of 5 per cent in real terms. This, he said, meant a poll tax by a different name was on the way.
"Any Local Authority member or City/County Manager will confirm that a doubling of local service charges and increased commercial rates for 2003 are imminent. The scale of the increase will remove the last fiction that local charges are for refuse or services. In effect a poll tax is on the way," Mr Allen said.
The party's finance spokesman, Mr Richard Bruton said the cuts were casued by "reckless spending" in the past two years. "They have used up the country's reserves. At a time when the economy needs a steady hand, the government is giving it a boot in the groin," he said.