An increase of €15.60 a week in the lowest social welfare rate has been sought by the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU) in its pre-Budget submission..
An increase of that size is necessary, it says, if the Government is to stay on target towards achieving a minimum social welfare rate of €150, in 2002 terms, by 2007.
That target was set last year in the National Anti-Poverty Strategy.
Increases in unemployment benefit, payments to asylum-seekers and child dependent allowance are also called for in the INOU submission.
The labour market in 2003, it says, has been increasingly characterised by rising unemployment levels, cutbacks in supports and factory closures.
"This in turn has obviously raised the number of people experiencing short-term unemployment."
Having paid PRSI contributions, the workers concerned should be allowed to retain a proportion of their lost income for a time, the document says.
