The Government was accused yesterday of putting "rhetoric without resources" on the table in talks on a new national partnership deal.
Father Seán Healy, of the CORI Justice Commission, said negotiations on the social inclusion elements of a new deal were reaching a critical stage.
The Government, he said, was putting commitments on the table without the resources to match them. This was "completely unacceptable" to groups in the community and voluntary sector.
Father Healy said measures to promote social inclusion would have to be part of any agreement if it was to have credibility.
On social welfare alone, he claimed, there were "serious questions" concerning the Government's commitment to honour its own target of having a minimum weekly payment of €150, in 2002 terms, by 2007.
"It's not that the resources aren't available," he said. The Republic had the lowest tax take in the EU, and could raise more funding for social provision and infrastructure by moving towards the EU tax revenue average.
This could be done without increasing income tax, he said.
Yesterday the partnership talks focused on revised Government proposals on macro-economic policy.
Ms Joan Carmichael, the assistant general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, said progress had been made towards ensuring that the social implications of this section of the agreement were addressed.
Talks on the other two frameworks under discussion this week, "Building, Maintaining and Sharing Economic Development and Prosperity", and "Delivering a Fair and Inclusive Society", are likely to resume on Monday and Tuesday.
Negotiations are now unlikely to take place over the weekend as had been planned, but there will be further talks today.
Parallel talks on the conditions for implementing the benchmarking pay increases for public servants also continued yesterday.
