The Republic has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to address poverty and exclusion through a new partnership agreement, the Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs said yesterday.
Mr Ahern was speaking at the opening of the annual forum in which voluntary agencies outline what they want from the Budget.
The Minister said the opportunity which the economy presented for attacking poverty must be taken into account by all the social partners "when we sit down to negotiate".
"In my opinion, we must address any deficits that are there in health, housing, childcare and social welfare rather than having an overemphasis on tax and pay."
"What the country now needs is an investment in our social infrastructure to bring our social services up to the best standards."
Mr Ahern said that through partnership "the country has changed dramatically since 1987. Then we were in a depression with high unemployment, high inflation and low growth. Today we have over 11/2 million people at work and unemployment is at a record low."
The improvement in the economy had reduced poverty, he said. "In 1987 between 10 per cent and 16 per cent of people were consistently poor, as defined by the ESRI. The figures I published recently have shown that that has dropped to between 7 per cent and 10 per cent, And we have set a target of halving that level in the next five years."
The Government had delivered on the social welfare commitments contained in Partnership 2000, he said. "Social welfare rates are at or above the agreed target, we have established more than the 30 community development projects promised and far more than the agreed total of £525 million has been spent on social inclusion."
But he warned he would be unable to deliver on all the suggestions made by organisations attending the forum. "At a rough count the proposals which we have received run to additional expenditure of over £2 billion. This is a good deal more than the £320 million we had to spend last year so, as you all know, difficult choices will have to be made."