The country's Catholic religious have accused the Fianna Fáil/PD coalition of scandalously and systematically widening the gap between rich and poor. Calling for rises in minimum weekly welfare payments of £14 for single people and £24 for couples, they say that radical changes are urgently needed to narrow the gap.
However, Minister Dermot Ahern has rejected the charges saying that 300,000 additional people have gone to work during the term of the government.
Today's comments from the Conference of Religious of Ireland came as their representative arrived at a pre-Budget Forum at which the religious and two dozen other groups told their host Dermot Ahern what December's budget should do for people they help day in day out.
CORI, the organisation representing 12,000 religious published figures showing how much different income groups had gained from this Government. Altogether, from the last four budgets, a single earner on £40,000 gained £177 a week.
However, an unemployed single person, unemployed for over twelve months gained just £18 a week. So the gap between the two has widened by £159 a week.
CORI's Fr Sean Healy called the growing gap a scandal, which should and could be addressed by Government with the resources which are now available. On CORI's demands for rises in minimum payments, Mr Ahern said that the Government was already committed to discriminating positively in favour of older people.
He said that this did not mean that the poorest were at the back of the queue, and pointed out that they had got good increases in recent budgets. But he warned that he had to be conscious of a tightening budget situation.
