THE National Women's Council said it was disappointed with the Budget, describing it as "yet another lost opportunity to take some bold and radical steps".
According to its chairwoman, Ms Noreen Byrne, three of the areas of expected action included: "A commitment towards counting the value of women's unpaid work in GDP; an initiative on a comprehensive national childcare strategy and a move towards age-related child benefit."
She said it was clear that traditional concepts of work and of the role and value of women remained deeply embedded in the minds of policy-makers. She welcomed the elimination of the label "deserted wives" but said it needed to be accompanied by an employment strategy for lone parents.
"Despite the rhetoric about women, only work by those in paid employment is counted. The essential work of carers is wholly undervalued and many women remain excluded from the job market.
Ms Byrne said she was most disappointed that instead of radical action integrating tax and social welfare systems, there was continuing incremental change.
"Minute amounts of actual increase will come to families especially those on low pay or social welfare. The increases in child benefit and social welfare or changes in tax and PRSI - translated into pounds and pence - will have a marginal impact on the weekly family budget of those most in need."
She said the focus on unemployment was welcome but "there remains the danger of trying to package the problem, to use schemes to mask reality and to use artificial figures by not dealing with the real numbers of women, who would, if they were allowed, wish to be counted as unemployed."
Referring to the Minister for Finance's announcement on the way Budget submissions will be dealt with in future, she said it could be a move towards greater democracy but it was undoubtedly a new layer of bureaucracy and interpretation of the views of interest groups. Many would wonder if it was simply a clever way of diverting "time-consuming interest groups" away from the Minister and his officials.
"If it marks the return of the golden circle of decision-makers to an ivory tower, it will be rejected emphatically," she said.
Meanwhile, the chairwoman of Democratic Left's national women's committee, Ms Helen Lahert, said low-income women would be among the main beneficiaries of the Budget.
A spokesman for the Department for Equality and Law Reform pointed to the £1 million the department would receive to carry out childcare projects in disadvantaged areas.