Trade Unions, the unemployed and other political arms of the workers' movement should seize the opportunity created by the boom to remedy long-standing inequalities and injustices in society, Mr Seamus Healy TD declared yesterday.
Mr Healy is an unemployment activist and Independent TD for Tipperary South.
The economic boom should not be an excuse for consensus politics with representatives of the "golden circles", he told the annual delegate conference of the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU) in Dublin.
Some 150 unemployment activists at the conference debated INOU policy and reviewed national campaigns for a "decent dole increase and quality services" for the unemployed.
Mr Healy, who gave the opening speech in place of the ICTU president, Ms Inez McCormack, who is in hospital, urged the conference to "use the most determined measures now because it might be the last chance for decades to come.
"Each year we hear of massive Exchequer surpluses," said the former hospital administrator, who won his Dail seat in June. "Much of this money is being used to give tax breaks to the rich, to pay off debt, to provide for the State pension bill in 50 years' time."
If poverty and under-provision in housing, health and education were not remedied while the surpluses existed, it would never happen, he said. The gap between rich and poor was widening. There were "growing problems" in social housing and key issues in health and education remained unresolved.
He said that the recent report on poverty by the National Economic and Social Forum made "shocking reading".
"The widening gap between rich and poor is now the worst in Europe, except for Portugal, with 21 per cent living on low incomes and one in every four children dependent on means-tested social welfare payments."
He called for the level of child benefit "for all children" to be raised to £100 per month immediately and for increases in other social welfare payments, "not just to compensate for inflation, but to close the gap that has widened between welfare and pay".
He said that the minimum wage should also be raised to £5.50 per hour.
The NESF report, said Mr Healy, showed that local authority waiting lists had increased by 40 per cent in the last three years. Social housing now accounted for only 8 per cent of the houses being built, the lowest figure in 100 years.
The organisation's general secretary, Mr Tony Monks, told delegates: "The Government should give people on the dole a guarantee that they will take them out of poverty instead of simply congratulating themselves on the continued fall in the live register."
He said that there should be no surprise at the live register figures, given the growth in the economy. "However, there are nearly 100,000 people in receipt of a full unemployment payment; their benefits have been eroded and they are living on less than 40 per cent of average incomes."