The Government's commitment to social justice is simply not credible, according to the Conference of Religious in Ireland (CORI).
The social partner's justice commission has criticised recent Government claims on its commitment to social justice, pointing to its track record, which it says "speaks far louder than all the progressive rhetoric with which they seek to cloud the core issues".
The justice commission's director, Father Sean Healy SMA, said: "The poorest people in Irish society have been left far behind as the gap between them and the rest of society has widened dramatically as a direct result of Government policy."
He compared the increase of £8 a week in social welfare rates proposed in the Bill currently going through the Dail, with the £200 pay rise for Government ministers. He said: "This Government has distributed the fruits of economic growth to its own ministers and to others who are better off in society, while simultaneously leaving the poorest even further behind. Treating the poorest in this way is fundamentally unjust."
Father Healy cited a second example of this unjust approach, in the tax changes for the better off in the last Budget. Reducing the top rate by 2 per cent gave the wealthiest an additional £163 million, according to CORI. Raising all social assistance by another £6 a week would have cost less than £150 million in a full year.
"The Government's approach to the poorest and most excluded in Irish society is not acceptable and is contrary to the aims and objectives of the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness. It is also contrary to the basic tenets of social justice. For this Government to claim that social justice is at the heart of its actions is not credible," Father Healy said.