PEOPLE WERE “gloomy and down”, Fine Gael finance spokesman Michael Noonan told the Dáil.

Members of almost every family were out of work, he said.

“Parents are deprived of the company of their adult children who are to be found everywhere in the world but in Australia, Canada, United States and England in particular,” Mr Noonan added. “Many grandparents have no contact with their grandchildren in far-flung places and their biggest thrill is to talk to them on Skype in the middle of the night.”

Fine Gael, he said, remained committed to reducing the budget deficit to 3 per cent of GDP by 2014, as agreed with the European Commission.

“I would say to the representatives of the trade union movement, whose views are sincerely held, and to our colleagues in Sinn Féin, whose views are also sincerely held, that to try to extend the target beyond 2014 could bring about a situation where we would not get the money to run the country next year,” he added.

The State was taking in €30 billion and spending €50 billion, he said. Mr Noonan said the €15 billion figure was a forecast and not a target. “The forecast can shift, depending on what growth figures are put in,” he added.

Labour spokeswoman Joan Burton said credibility had to be the principal feature of any revised four-year plan. “And it cannot be all about cuts and more cuts,” she said. “The most depressing feature of this debate is that our national predicament is presented as a choice between one extreme and another.”

Ms Burton said she found it amusing that journalists wanted answers from her and her colleagues as to what they would do.

“Do they want back of the envelope calculations done without proper analysis of the most recent data?” she said.

Sinn Féin spokesman Arthur Morgan said the Government was making conscious choices in the budget. “It is declining opportunities to raise, for example, €1 billion in revenue through the introduction of a wealth tax,” Mr Morgan said.

“If and when, this Government cuts social welfare it is because it has chosen to do so, and because it has chosen not to develop alternative revenue-raising tools.” Mr Morgan said his party had argued against bleeding demand from an economy that was already operating on empty when the succession of emergency budgets were introduced last year and in 2008.