16 November 2001: The increase in capital expenditure at 5% amounts to the virtual shelving of the National Plan, including a ‘freezing’ of the roads programme, according to Michael McDowell of the Labour Party.

“The roads programme is practically frozen when you take industry inflation into account,” he said yesterday in a comment on the publication of the Estimates. “Investment in roads and public transport are deeply inadequate.”

He said the Estimates figures and their meaning ‘runs totally contradictory’ to the Taoiseach's remarks recently to the Institute of Engineers in Kilkenny, where Mr Ahern said ‘it is essential that we continue to focus on delivery of vital infrastructure under the National Development Plan’.

“We are standing still,” Mr McDowell said. “When the economy was motoring along nicely the Government and the Minister for Finance threw fuel on the fire. Now when it is slowing down and needs boosting the Government is doing the opposite. Mr McCreevy is turning economic logic on its head.”

He said all other Government Departments ‘have been sacrificed’ to increase the estimates for health and education. “This estimates is about saving the Government's bacon and undoing the under investment in the first three years of the coalition.”