The Government's roadmap to ending poverty was described today as aimless and targetless.
The Labour Party's spokeswoman on finance said the National Action Plan against Poverty and Social Exclusion, which was published today, was full of "wishy-washy" statements of the current socio-economic policies of the Government.
Ms Joan Burton accused the Government of "filleting and dismantling valuable social inclusion and anti-poverty initiatives" across the board.
The plan was also roundly criticised by a coalition of social organisations as a lost opportunity. The End Child Poverty Coalition said it lacked the long-term strategic vision to meet the Government's 2007 target on child poverty.
Spokeswoman Ms Liz Kerrins said the plan "is unclear as to how we are to achieve the elimination of poverty and social exclusion for Irish children."
However the Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Ms Coughlan, said that tackling child poverty was a priority for her department. Speaking on RTE Radio this morning, Ms Coughlan said the plan was an evaluation of a seven-year strategy and as such focused on what has been achieved and what is left to be achieved.
She described the plan as a stage in the process of making a decisive impact on poverty by 2010 as part of the EU's Social Inclusion Strategy.
Ms Coughlan said that her department had been in consultation with groups since the beginning of January, but accepted that people were disappointed with decisions that had to be made on what went into the report.
But Ms Kerrins said the plan read as a report on current social and economic trends, and the objectives laid out in it lack measurable targets and sometimes specific actions.
She said it also failed to adequately address the elimination of poverty and social exclusion for children living in poverty in the Traveller Community as well as in asylum seeking and refugee communities.
However Ms Coughlan said the department had specific targets set out on homelessness, education, consistent poverty, employment and welfare rates, but admitted that social housing was still a difficulty.
The Green Party said the Plan failed to recognise the extent to which the Government's own policies were responsible for widening and deepening poverty in Irish society,
The party's Social and Family Affairs spokesman, Mr Dan Boyle described the action plan as plan "long on aspiration and short on action".
However, the plan was welcomed by the Combat Poverty Agency who said the priority was to ensure that its proposals were implemented.
Agency director, Ms Helen Johnston said Ireland had made great strides in tackling poverty in recent years, but more work in the area was needed. She said the plan could only succeed if the will and resources are available to implement it.
The Agency led a consultation process that helped inform the preparation of the Plan.