Social Justice Ireland has accused the Government of breaching one of
the terms set out by the ‘Troika’ which stipulated that the adjustments
in Budget 2014 were to be done “while protecting core services and the
vulnerable”.
Reacting to the measures announced in Budget 2014, Social Justice
Ireland stated on Wednesday, “This budget has failed to honour this
condition.”
The think tank also accused the Government of adopting a “very
short-term and one-dimensional” approach by focusing almost exclusively
on reducing the budget deficit.
At the same time, SJI warned that Ireland’s social infrastructure was being eroded.
In a statement, it criticised the Government for seeming to believe
that once Ireland exits the bailout in December all will be well.
“That
is not the case,” SJI said, because “Ireland remains in a very difficult
situation economically, socially and environmentally.”
Noting a lack of guiding vision in this budget, the group said the
Government was failing to appropriately address critically important
issues ranging from emigration to social housing, from investment to
rising poverty.
“Budget 2014 provides no guiding vision, no real sense of direction
for Ireland’s future, and no sustainable solutions to the major
challenges Ireland faces,” SJI said.
In its analysis and critique of the budget, SJI said the Government’s
austerity approach, which it claims has been shown to have no basis in
theory, “does not work in practice and is profoundly unethical in that
it targets those who are vulnerable rather than those who are better
able to meet the challenges of the present difficult situation.”
“The Government has claimed there is no alternative to austerity, no
alternative to the choices that they have made. This is a failure of
imagination. There is an alternative, a more just and egalitarian
alternative that confronts the challenges Ireland faces today, SJI said.
That alternative was detailed by Social Justice Ireland in its Policy
Briefings on ‘Budget Choices’ and ‘Investment Policy’ published in June
and September 2013.
Social Justice Ireland blames the Government for continuing with the
unfair distribution of the adjustment with two-thirds being achieved
through expenditure cuts while only one third comes from tax increases.
“It is not acceptable that Government has persisted with this
approach despite recent studies from the IMF and others showing that
such an approach increases poverty and inequality. Reversing the
tax/cuts ratio would have positive impacts on both these measures,” SJI
said.
The organisation outlines some questions which it believes the
Government needs to answer, questions which members of the Dáil and
Seanad should address in the budget debates in the coming months SJI has
said.
1. How can Oireachtas members have an informed discussion of the
budget when so much of its content is opaque and its basic numbers are
not clear?
2. What vision of Ireland’s future underpins Budget 2014?
3. What kind of future do we want for coming generations?
The full Policy Briefing may be accessed at: http://www.socialjustice.ie/