Poor face burden of adjustments - SJI

The Government’s “flawed analysis” and “faulty logic” have resulted in poor people being left to suffer a “hugely unfair proportion” of the burden of budget adjustments, Social Justice Ireland (SJI) has said.

In its annual socio-economic review published today, the organisation said during the boom the promotion of economic growth as an end in itself became the focus of policy which led to a series of failures including not broadening the tax base and regulating banks.

The review said that now at a time of crisis strategic thinking and planning have been “set aside” and this has resulted in a series of “invalid assumptions” being accepted into conventional wisdom.

The organisation said the assumptions that the economy should have significance over all else, that preventing all the major banks from collapse is the major economic priority and that cuts in public expenditure are key are “invalid” and “fail to grasp the fact that economic and social development are two sides of the one coin”.

“On the one hand there is a danger that people put all their trust in the market as the only real source of solutions to the challenges being faced,” director Fr Seán Healy said. “On the other there is a danger that people expect Government to resolve all the challenges effectively and fairly…both of these extremes must be resisted."

The review - entitled A New and Fairer Ireland - criticised the Government for its failure to acknowledge that improvements in social welfare rates from the mid-2000s were simply a "catch-up" for people.

This failure combined with a “faulty logic” which justifies targeting poor people had led to a situation where the working poor and people depending on social welfare payments have been left without sufficient resources to “live life with dignity”.

This is “unjust, unfair and unacceptable and should be reversed” the organisation said.

It found that at least 90,000 people employed in Ireland are at risk of poverty. By increasing the tax net and introducing a universal social charge, the last budget only added to the hardships already faced by working poor households, it said.

“It is profoundly wrong that poor people carry a major burden while senior bond-holders, who carry a large part of the responsibility for Ireland’s implosion, make no contribution to sharing the burden,” Fr Healy added.