McCreevy issues Budget warning
Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy tonight issued his starkest warning yet of a tough set of pre-Christmas budget proposals.
He said his opening position for a budgetary statement in December would be “very difficult” because of falling income and corporation tax takes.
Speaking in Luxembourg, Mr Mcreevy called the current position of the Irish economy “quite severe,” and said the government had fewer resources to spend than had at one time been hoped.
The minister reported that Ireland’s growth rate next year would be significantly less than the present 5%, due to the lower tax base.
“We predicted at the halfway stage this year a growth of around 3.5%; the rest of Europe is predicting a rate of less than 1%.
“The expectations are that the growth rate for 2003 is going to be a lot worse than this year. We are going to have a difficult budget.
Mr McCreevy also warned that with lower growth and smaller resources, there would be proportionately less expenditure, although he maintained that it would still represent an increase on this year.
