Small enterprise body dismisses CORI claim on absolute poverty as `nonsense'

The Irish Small and Medium Enterprises association (ISME) has dismissed as "disingenuous" the Conference of Religious of Ireland (CORI) complaint of last week that the gap between the rich and poor is growing.

"Their message is one of despair and suggests that absolute poverty is growing. Patently this is nonsense," it continued.

ISME said that given the favourable tax treatment that CORI members enjoyed and the enormous profits made from tracts of land sold by members for development, it felt that the charge made against the enterprise and job-creating sectors was grossly unfair.

"By definition relative poverty increases when there is a boom period unlike when an economy is in recession," it said. This did not mean those in low-income jobs were becoming poor in absolute terms.

The only way for the Government to stop this income gap growing would be to raise tax levels. This would rob entrepreneurs of incentive, it said. The economy would slow down, meaning dole queues would lengthen.

"CORI could be seen to accuse the current Government policies of promoting greed. However, it could just as well be accused of promoting envy, a hopeless theology," it said.

Father Sean Healy, of CORI, said last night he took very serious exception to the way CORI had been "misrepresented" by ISME. CORI had presented a "factual analysis" which showed the widening gap between rich and poor in society. ISME did not challenge any figures quoted by CORI, but had instead made a series of assertions, most of them false, he said.

CORI had never claimed that absolute poverty was growing, Father Healy said, and it was simply untrue to state that relative poverty increased in boom times.

It was also untrue to claim that raising tax levels was the only way to avoid such a gap. "CORI had made no reference to greed in society. It dealt with the widening gap between rich and poor, which was not inevitable and not acceptable," he said.

It was untrue to say CORI members received favourable tax treatment. "We pay our taxes like everyone else," he said. Where appropriate, charitable status was involved as much as other charities.