The Opposition has condemned today's supplementary budget for failing to recognise the Government's mishandling of the economy and not containing steps to tackle the jobs crisis.
Fine Gael finance spokesman Richard Bruton dismissed Brian Lenihan's measures as a "bookkeepers' budget".
Opening his response to the Minister for Finance's speech, Mr Bruton said the budget was undeserving of applause it received in the Dáil as if failed to recognise the economy was on a "perilous edge" with the most vulnerable at greatest risk
"People are once again being asked to rescue a failing Government," he said.
Mr Bruton told the Dáil he had hoped the Government would wake up to reality but there was "not an ounce of recognition" of the "huge and calamitous" mishandling of the economy by the Government.
"People see banks bailed out developers, the Government bailed out developers, taxpayers bailed out the banks . . . who is going to bail out the taxpayer?"
Mr Bruton said many families would see an extra tax burden of €2,500 due to the budget, which he said was huge increase for those on modest salaries.
He accused the Government of "spending like there was no tomorrow, living on easy street, with no questioning whether the State could afford it, with quangos piled on top of each other".
"Problems were never confronted, they were bought out. Ministers were highest paid in the world as if they were managing a successful economy.
"No other country is looking for €4 billion in extra taxes in the next six months. We stand alone . . . because the Government has eroded all the other options that other countries have got," Mr Bruton said.
It was "deeply depressing" that there was a lack of effort to reform anything and claimed the Government was "dying of shame" and threatening to take the State's economy with it.
The Fine Gael deputy leader said the budget admitted that by the end of 2010, 250,000 jobs would be gone. "FG believed this Budget would be all about employment . . . but the whole emphasis has not been about employment . . . this has been too much of a bookkeepers' budget."
Labour finance spokeswoman Joan Burton said the Minister's measures represented "the budget from hell", especially for families in middle income bracket with two or three children who were now being heavily taxed.
She said the Government had enjoyed goodwill and political capital but threw it all away. "The Government does not have vital political capital to call the country to unity . . . and this is why there will be little public acceptance of the Budget measures".
Ms Burton said the PAYE sector did not cause the economic crisis "but by god are you [Mr Lenihan] making them pay for it". She said the First World War description of soldiers and generals as "lions led by donkeys" was the "perfect description for plight of Irish people today" .
She told the House that blaming the international financial crisis was "an even more threadbare excuse" and warned if the economy continued to decline, "the real effect, tragically, could be to drag the economy deeper into recession and undermine efforts of business".
Ms Burton expressed her disappointment at the "very little imagination" shown by Mr Lenihan in drawing up his Budget and told him there was going to be no consent from PAYE workers to "taking the hit" while tax avoidance was seen to be continuing to flourish.
Labour leader Eamon Gilmore said this was a "payback budget", where "families on low and middle incomes are being asked to pay for 12 years of Fianna Fáil financial recklessness and mismanagement of the economy.
"People who pay for everything are being asked to pay again. They have already been asked to bail out the banks and now they are being asked to rescue wealthy property developers," he said.
"Middle income families are being turned on a financial spit, while many wealthy sectors have escaped yet again. There was not even a single mention of the scandal of the tax exiles in the budget and the urgent need to end the myriad range of tax reliefs has again been kicked into the distant future."
Sinn Féin economic spokesman Arthur Morgan TD said the failure to tackle job losses in the budget was "staggering".
Mr Morgan said Fianna Fáil and the Green Party had "failed those who are most in need, failed working families struggling to pay staggering childcare and mortgage bills, failed small and medium businesses at risk of going to the wall".
"Today’s budget failed to bring forward any real strategy to turn the economy around or to improve the country’s damaged international reputation."
He said: "Our reputation internationally has been damaged by this Government’s failure to manage the economy, by this Government’s failure to regulate the financial sector, by this Government’s over reliance on construction, by this Government’s shambolic handling of the public finances."
