The head of Cori Justice today criticised what he said were "unacceptable" failures in the Budget during a speech to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Social and Family Affairs.
Cori director Fr Sean Healy said Budget 2008 failed to provide the resources necessary for primary health care and adult literacy.
He said the budget backed down on a commitment to provide 300 primary care teams by the end of 2008 and claimed it set targets that could leave 10 to 15 per cent of Ireland's labour force illiterate by 2016.
Fr Healy said failure to honour social commitments contained in the national partnership posed serious challenges for talks of the next phase of Towards 2016, a 10-year framework for meeting the social and economic challenges Ireland faces.
"One of the most regrettable and unacceptable failures of Budget 2008 is its failure to honour the commitment contained in Towards 2016to create 300 primary care teams by the end of 2008."
Between 90 and 95 per cent of the population were treated by the primary care system, he said. "The decision not to allocate the necessary resources to meet this commitment is fundamentally flawed."
He said €3 million allocated for adult illiteracy programmes and related issues was most disappointing.
"If this Government target is achieved then 10-15 per cent of Ireland's labour force will be illiterate in 2016. This would have a very negative effect on Ireland's economic development, its unemployment levels and poverty rates. Far more resources should have been available to address this issue," he said.
Almost one third of Irish households were the "working poor", at risk of poverty even though their households were headed by someone with a job, and the most effective way of reaching them would have been to make tax credits refundable, Fr Healy said.