Opposition politicians have accused the Government of consistently getting its public finance estimates wrong ahead of the Budget on Wednesday.
This time last year, the department estimated that the budget for 2007 would show a deficit of €1.6 billion.
The latest figures show that they will open with a surplus of €4.4 billion, an improvement of €6 billion that was not expected.
Fine Gael's Richard Bruton said the Government has collected twice as much tax as it needed from families.
Labour’s Joan Burton said that under-estimating the public finances meant spending on health, education, and transport was far lower than it needed to be.
