A €3.5 billion "war on poverty" in the State's 25 worst-off communities must be fought over the next six years, the Labour Party has demanded.
In a major policy document, A Fair Deal: Fighting Poverty and Exclusion in Ireland, Labour said poor communities have benefited from the Celtic Tiger, but major pockets of deprivation still exist.
High unemployment, drug addiction and high school drop-out rates contribute to ensure poverty is transmitted to another generation, the Labour leader, Pat Rabbitte, has said.
The Government's existing Rapid programme for disadvantaged areas, which was supposed to have been funded by the National Development Programme, was subsequently starved of resources after the 2002 general election campaign.
"Having Éamon Ó Cuív travelling the length and breadth of the west coast giving out cheques for €5,000 and €10,000 may be great politics, but it is not a war on poverty," Mr Rabbitte said.
Under Labour's "Fair Deal", €3.5 billion of the next national development plan, or a minimum of 5 per cent, should be invested in hard-hit communities to cut teacher ratios, cut drop out numbers and provide pre-school and extra help for students having difficulties.
Furthermore, Fás should be ordered to create 10-year plans for young people in such areas to ensure that they do not drop out of school, or that they get job training if they do drop out of education.
Further funding should be invested to make sure that older people are retrained, while social welfare rules that make it more difficult for some to go back to work should be ended.
"What we need is a targeted assault on a small number of areas. They are relatively few in number, but poverty remains a deep-seated problem within them," said Mr Rabbitte.
A "war on poverty" is not popular with voters, he said: "These areas have the lowest turn-outs in the country, 30 per cent in some areas. But it is a moral question at the top of our priorities," he went on.
Over 65,000 children live daily in poverty, while a child of parents who did not complete their secondary education is 23 times more likely to live in poverty than a child of parents with third-level degrees.
Though the economic progress over the last 15 years is "a cause of celebration", Ireland still remains one of the most divided societies in the European Union, he said.
"We need to be clear about one thing from the start. Labour is not turning its back on policies of economic growth and national prosperity," he said.
"Labour does not argue that the country has gone down the wrong road, or that we must reverse gear or change direction. But we do argue that far too many have been left behind," he told journalists.
Though no money from the "Fair Deal" fund would be used for housing, Labour said that local communities would have "their own voice" heard before local plans are drafted.
The "Early Start" pre-school programme, currently available in some areas during morning areas, should be extended into the afternoon, while teachers should not have to teach more than nine pupils if those pupils are under the age of nine.
Extra school meals, money for books and help with literacy should also be put in place, while schools should have greater freedom about how they spend their capitation grants.
Meanwhile, schools coping with large numbers of immigrants should be given extra help. Currently, schools with 28 pupils without English as their first language can qualify for two extra teachers, but they get no more than two even if they have far greater numbers.
