A Government claim that poverty is taken into account when policies are being formulated has been challenged by the Conference of Religious of Ireland (CORI) Justice Commission.
Father Sean Healy of the Justice Commission said yesterday the claim by Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Ms Coughlan, was not supported by the evidence. In a detailed submission to Government on the forthcoming National Action Plan for Social Inclusion, the Justice Commission had identified two areas that illustrated the Government's lack of credibility on this claim.
Firstly, the Government failed to recognise that almost 60 per cent of those living in poverty were in households headed by a person who was not in the labour force.
Secondly, the Government failed to go anywhere near honouring its own commitment to raise the lowest social welfare rates in Budget 2003.
The commission said that because so many households were headed by people not in the labour force, a strategy focusing mainly on the creation of jobs for these people would be by definition a failure.
It said this fact needed to be emphasised constantly. "So much of Government policy on this issue is failing to appreciate the significance of the changes in the distribution of poverty over the past decade."
On Government commitments in the Budget, the submission said most people on the lowest social welfare rate were worse off in 2003 than in 2002 when inflation, rent increases and related cost increases were taken into account.
It said the National Action Plan for Social Inclusion should restate an anti-poverty strategy target of €150 a week in 2002 terms for the lowest rates of social welfare, to be met by 2007. It should also spell out how the Government proposes to achieve this target by 2007.