Budgets 2003-2008 - Opposition parties positions?

Tragedy

Spurred on by another thread where someone linked Joan Burton in 2007 bemoaning the fact that the Government spent €5.2billion less than it could have on cutting tax further or pumping more money into the public sector, and spurred on by how disingenuous all parties appear to be with revisionist history and rhetoric;

Did any opposition party(or spokesman on finance) call it consistently right, and early? Searching RTE returned too many results, so it's hard to get opposition comments on each budget.

RichardAnd

Not really. In 2007, FG fought the election by promising 2000 more guards and teachers and a free laptop for every child in secondary school. The word "responcibility" did not often arise during the boom years whether it be a builder remortgaging his house or a minister spending a few million to get his department's stationary changed.

Pharaoh1

To be fair there were were some warnings from the opposition.
This thread over on politics.ie gives some of the detail.

http://www.politics.ie/fine-gael/81108-richard-brutons-budget-speeches.html

RichardAnd is correct though that all parties promised giveaways in 2007.
FG for example wouldn't have done nearly as well as they did if they promised austerity but thats not an excuse.

Tragedy

I'm still bitter Bruton failed in his heaveho against Kenny