CORI priest says policies do not equal bankruptcy
Father Sean Healy, director of CORI’s Justice Commission, who has frequently criticised the Government for failing to tackle social exclusion, addressed last week’s Fianna Fail strategy meeting in Inchydoney, West Cork, on his vision of a fairer society.
But he and others were accused by Minister McCreevy yesterday of talking nonsense on the economy.
Mr McCreevy, who takes up his new job as EU Commissioner on November 1, said that he had no disagreement with Fr Healy’s objectives but he did not agree with one word of his economic approach.
“If we followed Fr Healy and people like him, we would bankrupt the country. Fr Healy and other people preach nonsense about the economy. An absolute nonsense.
“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,” he said.
Rejecting the claims, Fr Healy said more people (700,000) were at risk of poverty today than when Charlie McCreevy began as Finance Minister.
More than 250,000 of those were children. This was not an accident, he said.
“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 sufficient resources to live their life with dignity. But the policies implemented over the past seven years failed to handle this crisis situation.”
Fr Healy said all of CORI’s proposals to ensure people were not left out of the economic boom were made within fiscally responsible parameters. Shooting the messenger was no substitute for effective policies to eliminate the risk of poverty in Ireland.
He said those at risk of poverty were receiving less than €180 a week for a single person or €420 a week for a family of four.
“In making accusations that our proposals would bankrupt the country, no specific issues or analysis was given,” he said.
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