The average woman worker will gain pay increases of less than £1 a day under the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (PPF), according to the chairwoman of the ATGWU women's committee. Ms Breda Fell said the PPF was "treating working women with contempt".
The ATGWU, which has over 20,000 members in the Republic, is recommending rejection of the PPF. "The proposed agreement is little more than a deliberate insult to thousands of working women," Ms Fell said.
However, the Conference of Religious of Ireland has welcomed the PPF. The director of its social justice commission, Father Sean Healy, said yesterday the new national agreement "could reduce the rich-poor gap in Irish society if its terms were honoured in spirit and substance". He added that the move towards refundable tax credits, increases in social welfare and commitments by the Government to allocate extra resources to social inclusion if growth exceeded 5.6 per cent a year would increase the benefits coming to poor people from current prosperity. CORI represents 135 religious congregations with 12,000 members.
Ms Fell had a very different perspective. "The much-hyped social inclusion package is little more than that, hype. Women are caught in a poverty trap between low pay and social welfare. Many of us were hopeful that, having made sacrifices over the years, we would receive some compensation out of the proposed deal."
The Union of Students in Ireland also added its voice to criticism of the programme. Its deputy president, Mr Julian de Spainn, said that while the PPF quite rightly set aside a package of £3 billion for the low paid, "the Government has ignored the plight of students who must subsist on a grant of £47 per week".