Opposition parties denounced the Budget as an attempt to undo the mistakes of the last one as they accused the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, of undergoing a "Road to Damascus" conversion. The Government had been stung into action by the flood of criticism that followed the 1998 budget, they claimed.
However, in spite of derisory comments about the Minister's motivation, the Opposition parties were last night offering a qualified welcome to the move to introduce tax credits.
Fine Gael's finance spokesman, Mr Michael Noonan - the first politician to respond to the Budget speech in the Dail - said that after going "so wildly wrong" last year Mr McCreevy was trying to "mend his hand", and had done so to some degree.
Supporting the move towards tax credits, Mr Noonan suggested more could have been done at this juncture. No single person should pay tax on the first £120 of income and no married couple should pay tax on the first £240.
He identified the Minister's budgetary decision to provide only limited assistance for housing as a key failure. Emigrants would not return if they could not buy or rent accommodation; Dublin women would not rejoin the workforce if the only affordable houses were in "far-flung midland towns".
There was no sign of "radical rethinking" in a Budget that was to declare war on poverty, Mr Noonan added. The social welfare measures taken by the Minister fell far short of an all-out attack.
Nor was there anything in the Budget for the poor of the Third World. The Minister of State with responsibility for Overseas Development Aid, Ms Liz O'Donnell, "must have found it difficult to press her case", he said.
The health "crisis" had been ignored, with hospital waiting lists growing longer. Soon they would be above 40,000 again, a level last reached when the Fianna Fail/Progres sive Democrats government left office in 1992.
Fine Gael's social affairs spokesman, Mr Jim O'Keeffe, said if one was poor, seeking a home or looking after a family, the Budget brought nothing. "Children will get an average of £1 per month in 1999. Meantime, bookies and the gamblers will share a bonanza of £24 million - far more than the sick and the handicapped," he added.
According to the party's spokesman on agriculture, Mr Paul Connaughton, the farming community had been treated "shamefully" in the Budget.
"Never before did farmers need a substantial financial helping hand. Never before were the financial resources available to give that impetus to the ailing agriculture industry and never before did farmers feel so betrayed by any government," he said.
The £15 million extra for the Farmers' Dole Scheme amounted to £10 a week per farmer and would not be introduced for another four months. Describing the Budget as one lacking long-term vision, Labour's finance spokesman, Mr Derek McDowell, said the Government had been presented with a historic opportunity to put in place structures to ensure maximum participation in the workforce and the elimination of poverty.
This chance had not, however, been grasped sufficiently. Some of the biggest losers were the unemployed. Paring back on the allocation of additional places on the Back to Work Allowance Scheme was "nothing short of a disgrace". Welcoming the system of tax credits, he said Mr McCreevy could have used resources to give "a once-off considerable benefit" to those on the standard rate of tax. He could have "skewed" the system to the greater advantage of the less well-off.
Democratic Left's spokesman, Mr Pat Rabbitte, declared that not even the Irish rugby team could fluff the introduction of the 1999 Budget since the State's coffers were awash with money. But, he asked, for whom in particular was it good news? The Minister had come with his Budget and was reminiscent of his time in Social Welfare and the "infamous dirty dozen cuts". He had not "changed his socks".
Not one extra penny had been provided for housing. Any poll would show that the issue at the top of people's concerns was the problem of housing.
There were 45,000 people on the housing list, many of them who could well have expected to purchase their own homes.
The housing situation was a real barrier to re-entering the workforce. Many of the Minister's constituents knew little of the mythical Celtic Tiger. The long-term unemployed were stuck mainly in blackspot clusters. Describing Mr McCreevy as "an unreconstructed Thatcherite", the Green Party's finance spokesman, Mr John Gormley, said the Minister had failed to look after the most marginalised in society. Most of the social welfare increases were little more than the price of a pint, a fact that "puts these paltry increases into perspective".
Mr McCreevy had "completely shunned" any effort to introduce "green energy taxes". The Green Party was pleased the Minister had taken on board its pre-Budget submission on tax credits as a first step in the introduction of a guaranteed basic income.
The Sinn Fein TD, Mr Caoimhghin O Caolain, said the low level of social welfare increases was "very disappointing".
"Given the massive Budget surplus, the failure to provide substantial rises in social welfare rates is unacceptable. The long-awaited tax reform measures vindicate the efforts of people over many years to inject more fairness into the system, and as such the Budget measures are welcome," he said.