A quarter of Irish children and over a fifth of Irish people are at risk of poverty, according to Fr Seán Healy, of the Conference of Religious of Ireland (Cori).
Fr Healy, the director of Cori's justice commission, said Ireland was failing dismally when it came to the treatment of its most vulnerable people.
"In 2005 it is clearer than ever that Ireland is a country of growing socio-economic divides . . . our unequal society grows more unequal."
He challenged the Government to show how Irish infrastructure and social provision standards could be brought up to average EU levels while the country's tax-take remained so low.
"While budget 2005 was a move in the right direction, this needs to be maintained to ensure a fairer and more socially-cohesive society," he said last night. Fr Healy was speaking before the publication today of Pathways to Inclusion, a 208-page, socio-economic review prepared by Cori's justice commission and which critiques Government strategy.
It describes as "a conundrum at the core of Government policy" claims that Ireland's infrastructure and social provision can be brought up to EU average levels while having one of the lowest total tax-takes in Europe.
Fr Healy said the most competitive European countries were also among those with the highest tax takes.
"Small increases in taxation are certainly feasible, and are unlikely to have any significant negative impact on the economy," Fr Healy said. "An increase of just 1 per cent in GDP to tax ratio would produce and extra €1.3 billion each year in taxation income."
Were Ireland to increase its tax levels to that of the UK, "a country hardly regarded as being high tax, the Exchequer would have an additional income each year of €7.14 billion".
While insisting Ireland should remain a low-tax economy, he felt it should also be capable of adequately supporting "the economic, social and infrastructural requirements necessary to complete our convergence with the rest of Europe".
He said any society was measured by how it treated its most vulnerable people. "By this measurement, Ireland is failing dismally."
Despite substantial resources now available, "Ireland's poorest people have been effectively excluded from what is required to live life with dignity".
Applying an EU standard, he said those at risk of poverty in Ireland were people living on incomes of less than €199 a week. This meant that "more than 900,000 people in Ireland were living life on a level of income that is this low", of which 223, 756 were children.
