The Minister for Finance has hit out at the Construction Industry Federation for its approach to the National Development Plan and failure to give value for money. He warned that he did not design the plan for the industry's benefit.

"This may come as a surprise to some members of the Construction Industry Federation," Mr McCreevy told the Dβil, about the roads programme. "The plan exists for the benefit of the people and its roll-out has been progressive." He said they had not been getting "proper value for money" because inflation in the construction industry was from 15 per cent to 20 per cent.

Labour's finance spokesman, Mr Derek McDowell, said there was a "stop-go nature" to the implementation of the plan but Mr McCreevy said there had been "extraordinarily panicky comments" about the plan.

Criticising the CIF, he said that at the start of the plan the federation "pleaded with the Government to slow things down because its members could not do all the work and they did not want foreign competitors to come in to do the work. Yet the could not get around to it."

Fine Gael's finance spokesman, Mr Jim Mitchell, said the Government had built only 33 km of road in five years.

Mr McCreevy replied that there had been colossal increases in spending, and many problems were not finance-related.