The economic climate has changed and, over the summer, the Government introduced a mini-budget by stealth, with public services losing out most.

Health budgets were reduced and, in addition, more than €36 million was removed from the budgets for educational schemes, several of them aimed at tackling educational disadvantage. The publication of the Book of Estimates contained even more bad news and the additional cuts and broken promises in areas such as health, housing, education and community employment schemes almost beggar belief.

Despite impressions to the contrary, not everyone benefited equally during the recent period of economic prosperity. Better-off people benefited from reductions in income, capital gains and corporation taxes, tax incentives on investment in property and the SSIAs.

Over the period of the past five budgets, the poorest 10 per cent of the population, existing on incomes below €120 per week, gained less than €10 per week in net disposable income.

This contrasts sharply with the top 10 per cent of the population, those earning more than €513 per week, who gained over €120 per week in net disposable income.

The 9,500 volunteer members of the Society of St Vincent de Paul serve hundreds of thousands people every week throughout Ireland. We see the damage caused to people without access to an adequate income, decent housing, affordable healthcare, appropriate educational services and a host of other things that most of us take for granted.

Last year the society spent more than €21 million fighting poverty and disadvantage and each month we had to spend almost €1 million on basic necessities such as cash assistance, food, clothing, furniture and fuel. There are still more than 400,000 Irish children living in households so poor that they need Child Dependent Allowance, in addition to Child Benefit, to see them through the week.

In our pre-Budget submission, we called on the Government to ensure a fair share of available resources for all. Key social inclusion actions in the forthcoming Budget should include:

Increase lowest social welfare rate from €118 per week to €130 per week, and increase the Child Dependent Allowance to €25 per week per child.

Build an additional 5,000 houses each year for the next five years.

Build 3,000 sheltered housing units over the next three years.

Extend the Early Start Programme to another 270 schools.

Medical Card eligibility should be extended to everyone on the minimum wage and to children under 18 years. Sadly this has already been rejected.

Take those on incomes below the minimum wage out of the tax net.

We believe that these are the minimum actions needed in the short term. Adequate provision in these areas should be seen as a right, and not as a discretionary, debatable option.

Every sensible person agrees that investment in critical areas of our economy is essential for longer term success. But the challenge is how to do this while remembering that people live in a society and not just in an economy.

We need a balance between the requirements for continuing economic growth and the State funding necessary to provide adequate social services to maintain a reasonable quality of life for the most vulnerable in our society.

Now that the party of recent years is over it is not acceptable that those who were excluded from that party should be expected to clean up the resulting mess.