Budget 2025 has been dismissed as spin by Sinn Féin's Pearse Doherty, who also described the Government as "serial wasters" who treat people with "contempt".
The Donegal TD was speaking in the Dáil after Minister Jack Chambers and Paschal Donohoe delivered their Budget speeches.
He listed urgent issues affecting childcare, the health service and housing, and said the Budget fails to address them "because this Government is incapable of delivering real change".
"Your job is not to spend money; it's to get results," Mr Doherty said.
However he said that instead all people see "is a deepening housing crisis" that "nobody takes responsibility" for.
"Homeownership has collapsed under Fine Gael for young people," he insisted.
"There are 100,000 less people under the age of 40 that own their own home today than when Fine Gael came into government 14 years ago."
Skilled young people being driven out of the country due to a lack of housing is one of the reasons "we have children with autism being denied their constitutional right to education", he said.
Mr Doherty added that these are some of the basic needs that are going unmet in Ireland.
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"The most glaring reminder" of Government failure are the children "with scoliosis and spina bifida," he said.
He also said the Government had "squandered five years" and they would be judged on this when the general election happens.
Mr Doherty also accused the Government of raising a white flag on housing by failing to increase targets for house building.
Energy credits "do not go far enough", he said, and added that the two-tier tax package gives "winners and losers".
Meanwhile his party colleague Rose Conway Walsh accused the Government of trying to "buy Irish citizens with their own money".
She said the Government's "desperation to cling onto power permeates through this Budget."
'Creaking infrastructure should shame us' - Nash
The Labour Party's Spokesperson on Finance has called for a general election now, saying that "Ireland of 2024 is a country of winners and losers".
Ged Nash said there are "record Corporation Tax receipts, but record numbers of our citizens without a home", and despite "surpluses the envy of Europe" there are "public services and creaking infrastructure that should shame us".
After "a decade of uninterrupted growth, money isn't the problem. It’s a lack of imagination and vision that’s holding our country and its people back," Mr Nash said.
"This country needs a change of direction and an election should be called now."
The Louth TD dismissed the Budget as a "deep dinner plate drowned in tasty once-off measures to hide the fact that there's very little real meat on offer to sustain anyone".
'A bad deal for the public and the State finances' - Shortall
The Social Democrats Spokesperson on Finance Róisín Shortall said that the Budget "has just one overriding purpose – self-preservation, of the Government parties".
Ms Shortall said the Budget is filled with "quick fixes instead of structural reforms".
Noting that Taoiseach Simon Harris recently invited former Fianna Fáil leader Bertie Ahern to Government buildings for a "fireside chat", she said that this Budget "has all of the hallmarks of a Bertie Budget".
"Spray money around, create a distraction, and hope that it's enough to win an election."
"It’s a bad deal – for the public and the State finances," she said.
She accused the Government of indulging "in a spending splurge unlike any other" and said that "any value for money considerations have been left at the door".
People Before Profit-Solidarity TD Richard Boyd Barrett said the most "shocking failure" of the Budget is in relation to the "housing catastrophe".
He said the Government had the opportunity to deliver a transformative Budget but instead chose to deliver "a splurge of once-off measures to buy a general election".
'A high-octane, election budget' - Tóibín
Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín said that "this Budget is a high-octane, election budget" and a "McCreevy Mark 2" Budget.
The once-off payments "are like sticking plasters" and will disappear "like snow off a ditch".
"The Government are giving money with one hand and they are taking it with the other hand," he added.
