The Conference of Religious in Ireland (CORI) will today call for a significant increase in the tax take from business and the better-off in next month's Budget to narrow the gap between rich and poor.
In a pre-Budget briefing paper the organisation says resources must now be concentrated on improving infrastructure and social provision. An increased tax take should also be used to tackle education disadvantage, improve the health services and reduce housing waiting lists.
Calling for tax credits to be made refundable, CORI says most of the benefit of this would go to the poorest 30 per cent of income earners. Under this proposal, low paid people whose tax bills are less than the tax credit would receive a payment equal to the difference.
The organisation wants a windfall tax "on parts of the corporate sector that have benefited disproportionately from the reduction in Corporation Tax". The Corporation Tax rate should be retained at 16 per cent, rather than continue with the planned phased reduction to 12.5 per cent by 2006.
They also want increases in capital gains tax, taxes of property and wealth and environmental taxes.
"The gap between an unemployed person and a person on €50,000 a year has widened by €243 a week over the past five years as a result of Government decisions, the paper says. CORI wants the lowest social welfare payment to be increased by at least €14 a week for a single person and €24 for a couple, as well as the tax changes it outlined.
The document criticises the Government decision to reduce the number of places available on Community Employment (CE) schemes, saying this is a breach of the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness. It calls for a new programme to provide direct funding for community and voluntary organisations providing services which were dependent on CE schemes in the past.
In relation to rural development, CORI says direct payments to farmers favour the large volume, high-income farmers and militate against small local producers.
"The Budget should decouple all direct payments from production and introduce a direct payment in the form of a basic income for each person." It wants to prioritise spending on primary and pre-school education; give more priority to community care within the health budget; and take substantial steps towards fulfilling the Government's commitment to increase Ireland's Overseas Development Aid for poor countries to the UN target of 0.7 per cent of GNP by 2007.
CORI is one of the social partners and was involved in the negotiation on the last two national partnership agreements.
It represents over 135 religious congregations with 12,000 members in 1,400 communities throughout Ireland.
