Patsy McGarry,
Religious Affairs
Correspondent
The Justice Commission of the Conference of Religious of Ireland (CORI) has said the end of year tax returns were "a serious indictment of Government priorities and of Government policy generally". It pointed out that the returns showed "that almost 10 times the required amount of money was available to Government [in the Budget last month] but it chose not to use it to benefit Ireland's poorest people".
In a statement, the Justice Commission said the "most blatant failure in Budget 2004 was in the area of the lowest social welfare rates which should have been raised by a minimum of € 12 a week for a single person if the national agreement, Sustaining Progress, was to be honoured. Government pleaded lack of resources and raised the rate by only €10 a week." An additional €100 million would have raised all social welfare rates for single people by € 12 a week, it said.
The body challenged the Government's bona fides in honouring its national agreement commitments. Sufficient resources had existed to enable the Government honour its social partnership commitments to Ireland's poorest and most excluded people, it said.
It recalled that when it signed Sustaining Progress almost a year ago, it described it as "a modest one" in the context of the infrastructure and social provision deficits Ireland was facing.
It had decided to sign principally because of commitments to raise the minimum social welfare rates to 30 per cent of average industrial wages by 2007 and to take steps in the intervening budgets to ensure that target was reached on schedule.
"Budget 2004 did not honour this commitment," it said.