The director of the Justice Commission of the Conference of Religious in Ireland, Father Seán Healy, last night strongly rejected criticism of his economic policies made yesterday by the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy.
Father Healy was a guest speaker invited to the two-day meeting of Fianna Fáil TDs in west Cork last week. In an interview published yesterday, Mr McCreevy said Father Healy "preached nonsense" about the economy and that his proposals would bankrupt the country.
However, Father Healy said that "shooting the messenger was no substitute for effective policies to eliminate the risk of poverty in Ireland".
He told The Irish Times there were more people at risk of poverty today than when Charlie McCreevy became Minister for Finance. He said this was no accident, but due to Government policies over the last seven years.
"In the period while Charlie McCreevy was Minister for Finance, for the first time we had sufficient resources to ensure that everyone in the country had enough to live their lives with dignity. But the policies implemented over the past seven years failed to handle this crisis situation," Father Healy said.
In an interview with the Sunday Independent yesterday, Mr McCreevy, who will take up his post as Ireland's new EU Commissioner in November, said he had no disagreement with Father Healy's objectives for equal opportunity, but he did not agree with one word of his economic approach.
"If we followed Father Healy and people like him, we would bankrupt the country. Father Healy and other people preach nonsense about the economy.
"They are well listened to, they have great access in certain organisations and they are left unchallenged by many, but what they spout is rubbish," Mr McCreevy said in his interview.
Father Healy said last night that he had no interest in bankrupting the country. Everything he had proposed had been drawn up within "responsible fiscal parameters".
He said that over the last 10 years the composition of those at risk of poverty had changed dramatically from a position where the majority of those were families headed by a person unemployed, to a situation today where 60 per cent are headed by somebody outside of the labour force. These included the elderly, the sick, the disabled and carers looking after others at home.
Father Healy said he wanted the Government to implement policies which would see the lowest social welfare rates increased to 30 per cent of average industrial earnings by 2007.
The Green Party yesterday also criticised Mr McCreevy and said his comments revealed a politician who was still unable to face up to the negative side of the policies he had implemented over the last seven years.
