EVERY INITIATIVE the Government takes in the forthcoming budget should be “measured in terms of its impact on poor and vulnerable people”, anti-poverty campaigner Fr Seán Healy of Social Justice Ireland has said.
Speaking at a pre-budget press conference of groups known as the community and voluntary pillar, he recalled that, in the last budget, families in the category of "working poor" suffered five cutbacks.
These were families where the head of the household had a job but the total income was below the poverty line. He added that similar measures were "what we don't want to see" in the coming budget.
"We have a serious concern about the level of 'hits' taken already by people who are vulnerable, on the margin, the working poor, people on low incomes, who are dependent on services where the services are being actually eroded," he said.
A briefing document issued by the organisation,
Choosing a Viable Future in Precarious Times, states: "The fiscal adjustment in 2012 and beyond should be achieved in a two-to-one ratio between tax increases and expenditure cuts. The tax take should be increased through broadening the tax base and eliminating tax breaks that benefit mostly the better off, and not through increasing income tax."
Fr Healy said the Commission on Taxation had "identified 131 tax breaks, most of which benefited only the better-off", who secured "billions of euro" in savings as a result. "We are simply saying that's more than adequate to meet what is required," he added. The organisation is expected to meet Minister for Finance Michael Noonan prior to the December 6th budget and would be presenting him with a copy of its briefing document.
Fr Healy said the organisation had "strong views" against the position of the Fiscal Advisory Council, the new watchdog on Government finances, which has estimated that an adjustment of €4 billion would be required for next year instead of the planned €3.6 billion. He said the council consisted of "ive very eminent and capable people, but they are all economists and we have serious questions about an approach to the economy and to the society generally that is seen only through the lens of economists".
Economic and social development could not take priority over each other: "They are two sides of the one coin." He said: "You can't have one without the other; you can't sort of say, 'Let's get the economy right and then we'll go back to dealing with social issues'." He also said the fiscal council would "benefit enormously from having somebody who understood something about social policy in it".
