Inequality and poverty have increased significantly under the present Government, which continues the 'folly' of pursuing social welfare cuts, the Labour Party has said.
The company's spokesperson on Social and Family Affairs, Mr Willie Penrose was responding to an ESRI report which shows relative poverty has more than doubled since 1994.
The authors of Monitoring Poverty Trends in Ireland: Results from the 2001 Living In IrelandSurvey, describe as "striking" the increasing risk of relative poverty for older people, particularly older women, the ill or disabled and those tied to the home such as single mothers.
While the authors stress that much has been achieved - for example, consistent poverty has been almost eliminated - they report that those groups who find themselves below relative income poverty thresholds are increasingly "stuck" and unable to move out of poverty.
"Ironically the ESRI figures were released yesterday, on the very day that Minister [Mary] Coughlan insisted her Savage 16 social welfare cuts will be brought in before Christmas. The Bill implementing many of the cutbacks is being pushed through the Dail this week. It is my view that the report indicates the folly of pursuing cutbacks," Mr Penrose said.
"To prevent those on social welfare from falling further into relative poverty there needs to be a systematic programme implemented where there are increases in the social welfare payments above inflation to bring people up to at least the financial footing they were at in 1994."
The Green Party said the Government could not "continue to hide" behind its favoured use of the 'consistent poverty' measurement after relative poverty had doubled since 1994.
"The...report reveals how poorly this Government is dealing with the depth and continuing existence of poverty in Ireland," said the party's spokesman on social and family affairs, Mr Dan Boyle.
"Relative income poverty is the only internationally accepted comparison of poverty figures between countries, and it is a comparison that reflects badly on the policies of this government." Mr Boyle said the recent "callous" changes announced by the Minister for Social and Family Affairs gave little hope that the rising levels of relative poverty could be reversed.
The Minister for Social and Family Affairs, however, welcomed the ESRI report, saying it showed that Government policy was continuing to move people out of poverty.
She said the report confirmed the downward trend in consistent poverty in Ireland, which had been reduced by about two-thirds between 1994 and 2001.
"The report shows that our target of reducing consistent poverty to below 2 per cent, as set out in the revised National Anti-Poverty Strategy, can be achieved, " Ms Coughlan said.