The Justice Commission of CORI, the Conference of Religious of Ireland, has criticised the Budget as "unjust, unfair and unacceptable".

In a lengthy critique published yesterday, it said that "for the fifth year in a row this Government has failed to give priority to the deprivation being experienced by Ireland's poorest people".

While welcoming some initiatives in the Budget, it continued that "while the country has been experiencing its most prosperous period ever, the Government's budgetary choices have produced a situation where Ireland's poorest people are expected to live on £93.56 (€118.82) a week. Its choices have also widened the rich/poor gap by £191 a week."

It pointed out that, as a result of the choices made in the Budget and "despite the unprecedented prosperity of recent years, poverty and social exclusion have not been tackled on anything like the scale that was possible, given the available resources".

The initiatives it welcomed in the Budget included increases in child benefit and in the tax allowance for carers. It also welcomed the increase in old age pensions, the doubling of the widowed parents grant, the bringing forward of payment of most social welfare increases to January 2002, and the increase in funding for special-needs assistants in primary schools.

It also welcomed the general increases in health spending and the increase in the overseas development budget to 0.45 per cent of GNP.

But it said this Government had "failed dismally" to tackle poverty by providing people with sufficient income to enable them live with dignity.

It added that a growing number of poor people were on housing waiting lists and a two-tier healthcare system ensured the Republic's poorest people must wait until the better off have been provided for first. It was, it said, a situation that would continue even if the recently published healthcare strategy was implemented.