A coalition of community and voluntary groups has been set up to lobby for additional spending on poorer people in the next Budget.
"This Budget must reverse the direction of the 1998 Budget, which favoured the wealthy," said Mr Fintan Farrell, spokesman for the Share the Wealth Now - Budget '99 Campaign. "It must be a Budget that has tackling poverty and social exclusion as its priority."
The coalition is demanding that the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, increase social welfare payments by at least £5 per week per person, and at least £8 for couples.
It also wants a substantial increase in child benefit, similar to that recommended recently by the Combat Poverty Agency.
Other demands include free medical care for children under 17; increases in the income thresholds for medical cards by £20 per week for single people, and to Family Income Supplement thresholds for families with children; an increase in FIS income thresholds by £10 per week; a national minimum wage of £4.40 per hour; and tax relief for the lower paid; - £6 per week to single people and £12 to couples; and the conversion of tax allowances and reliefs into tax credits, with nobody on low incomes losing out.
The campaign, which is supported by SIPTU, is being organised by the community and voluntary groups who are party to Partnership 2000: the Community Workers' Co-operative, CORI Justice Commission, European Anti-Poverty Network, Forum of People with Disabilities, ICTU Centres for the Unemployed, Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed, Irish Rural Link, Irish Traveller Movement, One Parent Exchange and Network and the Vincent de Paul Society.
They will be holding a march and rally from the Custom House to Leinster House at noon on Thursday, November 19th.
"This Budget is the last opportunity for the Government to fulfil financial commitments made to tackling exclusion and inequality in the Partnership 2000 agreement," said Ms Siobhan Airey, another a campaign spokesperson.