Sir, - Ireland has 21 per cent of its population living on low incomes. This is called "relative" poverty. It affects particularly, the sick, the disabled and those living on small pensions. The State has two instruments to raise the standards of living of these poorer people - the Budget and the National Development Plan. If the guiding principle of these two agencies is not the reduction of poverty, they are just a waste of time.
The social partners are about to review the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness. And we will have a Budget next December. Unless the reduction of poverty is the priority of these two events - and kept squarely before the minds of those involved - the result will be a further widening of the gap between rich and poor.
I appeal to the PPF participants and to the Minister for Finance to place the reduction of poverty at the top of their agendas. They will have much work to do but nothing is more important than this. They don't have to rob Peter to pay Paul, but Paul deserves a good deal more than he is now getting. To me, it is a matter of basic justice. - Yours, etc.,
Father Pat Griffin, PP, Waterville, Co Kerry.