Budget 2008 contained a number of welcome initiatives but failed to maintain the momentum of the last three budgets in addressing poverty and social exclusion, according to the Conference of Religious of Ireland (Cori).
Delivering a mixed reaction to the package unveiled on Wednesday by Minister for Finance Brian Cowen, Cori welcomed the pledge to increase the number of social housing units by 9,000, the environmental initiatives and the tax and social welfare boosts. However, it accused the Government of failing to honour a commitment to fund 300 primary-care teams across the State by the end of next year and said not enough had been done to improve adult literacy rates.
Cori spokesman Fr Seán Healy said: "One of the most regrettable and unacceptable failures of Budget 2008 is its failure to honour the commitment contained in Towards 2016 to create 300 primary-care teams by the end of 2008".
"The failure to allocate the necessary resources to meet this commitment is a disgrace," he added.
Primary-care teams are made up of GPs, nurses/midwives, healthcare assistants, home helps, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, social workers and administrative personnel.
Fr Healy said the Budget failed to address the issue of the working poor by, for example, making tax credits refundable.
He also criticised the failure to increase the qualifying adult social welfare rate to make it equal to 100 per cent of the claimant's rate, except in the case of the contributory old age pension, where "some progress" had been made, and the failure to do substantially more to tackle child poverty.
While welcoming the allocation to deliver the National Development Plan, Fr Healy insisted that sufficient resources existed to ensure that much more was done to tackle poverty.
"The current budget surplus will be €4,866 million in 2008. A part of this money could have been used to address the social challenges in the areas of income adequacy, service provision and activation."
