A £10 per week increase for every adult dependent on social welfare and an extra £12.50p per week in tax relief for PAYE workers are being sought by two of the main strands of the social partners.
In a Budget submission to the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, the state's largest union SIPTU and 21 representatives of the voluntary and community pillar outlined 12 key pre-Budget demands.
Recalling Mr McCreevy's "dirty dozen" cuts when he was Minister for Social Welfare, the submission proposes a "Decent Dozen" demands. For children, the submission proposes increases of £10.50p and £11 per month in Child Benefit, childcare subsidies for parents and free medical care for all those under 18.
The organisations include SIPTU, the Community Workers Co-Operative, CORI, the European Anti-Poverty Network, the Forum for People with Disabilities, the Society of St Vincent de Paul, Women's Aid and the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed.
They say that Family Income Supplement thresholds should be increased by at least £20 a week and paid parental leave should be introduced for working parents with young children. Carers in the home should be provided with a new social insurance scheme and people with disabilities should receive a new "cost of disability allowance" to help make transport and access to work more affordable.
Welcoming the submission, SIPTU general secretary Mr John McDonnell said that the checklist heading of the "Decent Dozen" was "a discreet reminder to the Minister of his reputation for cutting rather than improving social welfare. He now has a golden opportunity, with unprecedented resources at his disposal, to put the `dirty dozen' tag behind him and make expenditure decisions in favour of those in our society who are poor, marginalised and socially excluded.
"All that is needed is the political will to address these issues and our checklist provides a pointer on exactly how this should be done."
The general secretary of the INOU, Mr Mike Allen, said that "These dozen demands are all achievable in the coming year. They are not a pie in the sky wish list but a serious set of proposals, which we hope that the Minister and the Government as a whole will refer to in their pre-Budget deliberations."
Speaking at a separate seminar on child benefit, SIPTU equality officer Ms Rosheen Callender said that "Addressing both child poverty and the childcare crisis are very much on the trade union agenda, as we approach Budget 2000 and enter talks on a successor to Partnership 2000.
They have been on our agenda for a very long time and we welcome the fact that these long standing demands have now been strengthened by the support of virtually all the other social partners - community and voluntary groups, the employers and many state agencies.
"Indeed, we have even had support from abroad, from sources as diverse as the head of the European Central Bank, the OECD and the European Commission." But she added that SIPTU did not simply view the urgent need to address child poverty and the childcare crisis "as a matter of improving living standards, developing a childcare industry and creating equal opportunities for men and women to access employment".
Important as these were, equally important was the need to ensure that future generations "grow up in a safe, secure and stimulating environment with real choices at all points of the life cycle".
