The Government faces further Budget pressure from Opposition parties and unions next week, with Fine Gael tabling a Dail motion demanding steps to ensure full participation in the national pay talks.
The ICTU and SIPTU have both issued statements reiterating their position that low pay is now a central issue requiring resolution in direct talks with the Government in the coming days.
The Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, said last night the party had tabled a private member's motion, to be supported by the Labour Party, because it believes the ICTU was right to raise the alarm about the social balance of the Budget.
Mr Bruton said yesterday's reports that a further £125 million is to be spent on social welfare would help some people on low incomes, but he insisted the Government could have achieved a better result if it had taken Fine Gael's advice and exempted all tax payers under £170 a week from income tax.
"Patching up the Budget by instalments damages the credibility of the Government and of the budgetary process and invites further pressure from other groups. Inevitably, any package the Government now provides would be full of anomalies."
The Fine Gael motion calls on the Government to take the necessary steps to "reassure the participants in the talks of its good faith and restore the degree of trust and confidence essential for any negotiations to be successful".
The motion deplores the introduction of "suspicion and uncertainty" by the Government to the talks process so far.
The Labour Party spokesman on Finance, Mr Derek McDowell, said the Government decision to proceed with a further rebalancing measure to address the inequalities of last week's Budget was making a mockery of the budgetary process.
By introducing a new balancing measure to its existing balancing measure the Government was admitting that last week's Budget was a fiasco, he said. "Never before in the history of the State has a Finance Minister produced what are effectively three budgets in the space of 10 days."
Mr McDowell appealed to the Minister for Finance to "wipe the slate clean" and draw up an entirely new Budget for next year.
The national executive council of SIPTU said yesterday that the "failure to apply the NESC strategy for tax reform" and the emphasis in the Budget on "devoting greatest resources to those with the least need" was a misuse of resources and a departure from the agreed national strategy.
SIPTU said the Government's actions had undermined the foundations of the partnership process and had made SIPTU's position untenable in the talks.
SIPTU said it welcomed the intervention of the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and hoped that progress would be made early next week to "address the imbalance in the present Budget proposals in respect of people on low incomes".
A Government spokesman said last night that low pay would be considered in the context of a new partnership deal.