Any new national agreement must focus on seven key areas to ensure that people's social, economic and cultural rights are met, two Conference of Religious of Ireland directors have said.
Father Seán Healy and Sister Brigid Reynolds said the main challenge facing any programme was to choose a fairer future than what was currently on offer.
The seven areas identified are: sufficient income, meaningful work, appropriate accommodation, adequate healthcare, relevant education, cultural respect and real participation in shaping decisions.
"Sufficient resources exist to deliver them," they said. "Delivering on these basics would produce substantial progress towards a fairer future." The proposals are contained in a book of papers compiled after CORI's social policy conference earlier this month.
Father Healy and Sister Reynolds said there was a major paradox at the heart of Irish development. "While Ireland now has a per-capita income above the EU average, its infrastructure and social provision are far below the EU level. Ireland's tax take is far below the EU average."
Also in the book, Mr Joe Larragy, of the Centre for Applied Social Studies in Maynooth, said the time had come to shift the distribution of income between capital and wage earners and between different groups in the economy.
"It is not the level or the rate of taxation that is the fundamental issue but what services are provided and how equally," he said.
Dr Patricia O'Hara, senior policy analyst with the Western Development Commission, said disparities were widening, both between and within regions.
"That this is happening at a time when general economic conditions have never been more benign indicates that, without radical action, the situation is unlikely to improve," she said.
Prof Gerard Quinn said it was a gross exaggeration to say that giving people rights would deprive the market-place of discretion. The markets, democracy and rights were "mutually supportive. They underpin each other. They are key to the global economy."
Prof Quinn pointed to the waiting lists for people with an intellectual disability and said this problem did not happen overnight. "It was allowed to build up over years. The relative invisibility of the group and the relative political impotence of the interest groups involved had to have something to do with this."
