Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 25 Nov 1987

Vol. 375 No. 8

Private Members' Business. - National Social Service Board: Motion.

Mr. Howlin

I move:

"That Dáil Éireann notes that the range of services provided by the National Social Service Board is managed by a total staff of 20, operating with a budget of £475,000. Dáil Éireann considers that continued operation of the NSSB would be the most cost effective and efficient way of providing the essential community services involved. Dáil Éireann also believes, that it would be counter productive to disperse the experience accumulated within the NSSB, and that it would be disastrous to attempt to distribute the services provided among different sections of the Department of Health, Health agencies and other Departments. Accordingly, Dáil Éireann instructs the Government to rescind its decision to abolish the NSSB; and further, to provide sufficient resources to enable the NSSB to continue to function as efficiently as heretofore.

Let me say that I propose to share my time with my colleague, Deputy Barry Desmond, and I would like to give him ten of the 40 minutes.

An Ceann Comhairle

I put that forward for the House's agreement. Agreed.

Mr. Howlin

In moving this resolution in the name of the Labour Party and other Deputies and other political parties I should note that it is an unusual one. Although we are using Labour Party Private Members' time the resolution has attracted cross-party support of other parties and Deputies in Opposition. I thank the PDs, The Workers' Party and Deputies Gregory and Kemmy for appending their names to the motion. This cross-party support is a recognition throughout the Dáil that the decision to abolish the National Social Service Board is a mean, narrowminded attempt to stifle independent information and comment on social service issues. There can be no other explanation for the extraordinary decision of the Minister and the Government.

By any objective analysis the NSSB do a cost effective and efficient job and provide vital information, backup and training to voluntary workers throughout the State. The provision last week of £1 million for community information and development from the proceeds of the national lottery undermines completely any financial argument that the Minister might put forward in justification for this action. Why then was the decision made to abolish this independent agency and replace them with a structure within the Civil Service at twice the cost?

I want to put this debate in context and to outline for the House what exactly is at issue. In October 1971 the then Minister for Health, Deputy Erskine Childers, established the National Social Service Council. This council was a focal point for voluntary social service activity. Its services included providing comprehensive and up to date information about a range of voluntary work in the social field. It supported the development of new voluntary social service organisations and provided encouragement, assistance and advice to voluntary agencies already in existence. In February 1974 the national conference on the right to know information for citizens sponsored by the NSSC led to the setting up of a nationwide network of voluntary community information centres. The NSSC were given responsibility for promoting, supporting and registering community information centres. The philosophy behind the community information centres was to enable citizens to have access to accurate and clear information about their entitlements so that they could make their own decisions and be in charge of their own lives.

In June 1981 the NSSC were replaced by the NSSB who were to have responsibility for (1) support and development of community information centres; (2) operation of a national resource centre to help health boards and voluntary organisations in the development of voluntary social services; (3) supporting the work of the National Council for the Aged, a body set up to advise the Minister on all aspects of welfare of the aged. In July 1984 the NSSB was properly established. The functions of the then board were to advise the Minister and keep him informed of developments in the social services area and whenever he requested to advise him and keep him informed of such aspects or branches thereof of particular social services as he might specify. It was to promote greater activity, co-ordination and public awareness of social services, to promote, develop, encourage and assist, by provision of financial or material aid, personnel services or otherwise, the development of services and schemes in the community and to disseminate information and advice in relation to social services. A range of other functions was written into the terms of reference.

To date the NSSB has performed the functions assigned to it with enthusiasm to extraordinary effect. The community information services established since then now come to some 80 and cover the country, a blanket of information centres from Ardee and Arklow right down to Wexford and Waterford. Each of these centres provides trained and skilled personnel who give information on an open basis to any caller, any member of the general public or any citizen. In 1979 the centres dealt with 39,000 queries. By 1986 that number had risen to 110,000. The NSSB provides the training for volunteers who man these centres. It is responsible for the maintenance of basic standards. It provides updating at regular intervals and provides grants towards the running costs of these information centres.

Other activities include the training schemes operated by the board. It began a training programme for volunteers and 850 people from the voluntary and statutory sectors attended courses organised by the NSSB in 1986. The courses included effective instructional skills, effective and confident use of radio and many other matters for voluntary organisations. The service provided an audiovisual library. One problem experienced by voluntary organisations is the cost of insurance cover. In 1982 a group scheme was organised by the NSSB for voluntary agencies and now almost 200 organisations participate in that scheme. The NSSB provides a range of publications and information packs to the centres and a monthly journal Relate, an information bulletin with a circulation of over 7,000. The board has a voice independent of any Government Department on matters of social services. It covers by Statute the National Council for the Aged. Three staff of the National Council for the Aged are employed under contract in the NSSB. All this is done with a staff of 20 people and a budget of approximately £500,000.

The question again arises as to why the Minister and the Government now want to stifle this independent voice. I have been searching for an answer to that question and can find none. I know that the Minister, Deputy O'Hanlon, has in the past taken issue with the NSSB and with their journal, Relate. In December 1983 Relate contained an article on Dáil Questions on social welfare which certainly annoyed the Minister, then in Opposition. It was a fair and balanced article but it obviously caused so much irritation that Deputy O'Hanlon put down a Dáil Question on 23 February 1984. I quote from column 650 of the Official Report:

Dr. O'Hanlon asked the Minister for Social Welfare if his attention has been drawn to an article in a publication (details supplied) to the effect that Members of the Oireachtas are abusing the system of parliamentary questions by virtue of the number of those being asked on social welfare problems; and if he will make a statement on the matter.

During the course of the reply and the supplementaries we were given an indication of Deputy O'Hanlon's attitude at that time to the role of the NSSB and its publication.

Deputy O'Hanlon asked the Minister to agree that it was totally misleading of the magazine to publish such an article. Deputy O'Hanlon went on to say that the magazine was being circulated through community offices around the country who are expected to give correct information to claimants who find themselves in difficulty with regard to their applications to the Department of Social Welfare. He asked the Minister to write to the National Social Service Board and ask them to publish a correction. The debate went on and the irritation obviously lasted a long time. Surely this irritation is not the basis for this unwarranted attack on the NSSB?

We come now to the actual announcement of the Government's intention to abolish the board. Following many rumours the Minister issued a Press statement on 15 October last which stated:

Dr. Rory O'Hanlon, TD, Minister for Health wishes to clarify the position in relation to the future of the services now provided by the National Social Service Board, in order to correct inaccurate statements made since his announcement earlier this week. As the Minister pointed out, these services will not be terminated. Alternative arrangements for their provision, as appropriate, are being put in place.

The community information centres throughout the country will continue to operate as heretofore, with the support of the health boards and other public authorities. The Minister believes that these centres are of considerable value to the public, giving as they do information and advice on a comprehensive range of services and entitlements.

There were three other paragraphs in the announcement but that was the only particular issue mentioned. This was the only one of the many services I have listed to which the Minister alluded, guaranteeing that it would be maintained. The information centres which he said would continue to operate as heretofore are run by independent local voluntary workers and it is not for the Minister to say whether they will continue or not. It is to be decided by those who give of their own time and effort to provide those services. They get assistance from the NSSB in the form of grants, training, materials, information and so on. Without this assistance they will have to make up their own minds as to whether they will continue to operate as heretofore.

The staff of the NSSB responded to the statement and outlined several points. The first is that the integrity and usefulness of the information service depends on the independence of that service as perceived by the voluntary community information centres and by the 100,000 people who use that service. Secondly, the staff stated that there was no justification for the decision to close. The Minister said that staff would be redeployed but that will mean that 52 per cent of the budget will continue to be paid. If attempts are made to continue the service through the health boards and other Government Departments it will be necessary to continue to provide the funding. So, where is the saving? The staff also pointed out that the Government had said the backup service to the community information centres was to be rationalised by putting funding under the health boards and under the Departments of Health and Social Welfare. That is great rationalisation, taking an organisation efficiently and effectively run by one body and giving it to ten — eight health boards, the Department of Social Welfare and the Department of Health. All these points were unanswerable and the Minister has yet to attempt to answer them.

Now we come to the reaction since the Minister made his dramatic announcement. The NSSB support group has been established and to date up to 300 separate organisations have pledged themselves to support the continued existence of the NSSB in its present form and under its present management. The organisations supporting the NSSB make very interesting reading. They include the Catholic Social Services Conference, AOSTA, the Council for the Status of Women, the ISPCC, Lifetime, the Rape Crisis Centre, the Irish Association of Social Workers and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. Practically every organisation involved in the social services sector has pledged support.

What has been the reaction from the general public and the media? It has been said that no other decision in the social service area has had as dramatic an impact as the decision to abolish the NSSB. What has been the Minister's reaction to the press, the public and all those voluntary organisations across the country who give of their own time and provide the services which otherwise would not be in place?

The Minister's response has been the statement I mentioned and another announcement last week. It appears that the Minister will provide £1 million from the proceeds of the lottery for an alternate service but no information has been given to the House about alternate plans. I should like to quote what was published in yesterday's issue of the Irish Independent:

A new community information unit to replace the National Social Services Board will be announced this week by Health Minister Rory O'Hanlon (I look forward to that with interest). And more cash is being provided for the new service than the cost to run the old one.

The Minister will announce the new unit — which will function within the Department of Social Welfare — in advance of a Dáil motion for the retention of the NSSB on which the Government faces possible defeat.

The plain fact is that the Minister has made a dreadful mistake. For some unknown reason — he has not given a proper reason either by way of press statement or in response to parliamentary questions — he has not replied to the simple question, "why are you going to abolish the NSSB"? It appears that like so many other issues, whether it is the Health Education Bureau or other agencies, he wants to stifle any independent voice that might possibly criticise the drastic actions of his Department and the Government. The Minister has made a nonsense of any economic argument by providing double the amount of money to run a new unit that will be subsumed within the Department of Social Welfare. The Minister has made a dreadful mistake, for whatever reason I do not know. However, this time the Minister can learn from recent events. He can learn from the happenings of last night and change his mind on this matter before he is forced to do so by the combined weight of opposition that stretches not only across Opposition benches in the Dáil but across the nation and among those who have any concern for the provision of adequate social services.

An editorial in The Irish Times on 15 October last, under the heading, Unkindest Cuts, stated:

Many cuts in public expenditure are painful but necessary. Some may even help in a roundabout way to improve the quality of the services affected. A few are simply and inexplicably mean.

The editorial went on to include the abolition of the NSSB among those it describes as "simply and inexplicably mean". The support for the retention of the NSSB has motivated people to write to national and local papers.

Before I conclude I should like to help the Minister make up his mind on the issue by reminding him of some of the statements made by him, and his colleagues, on the NSSB in the past. On 22 July 1982 in the Seanad debate on the National Community Development Agency Bill the Minister's colleague, Dr. Woods, said, as reported at column 1321 of the Seanad Official Report:

How will the local voluntary bodies become involved with the agency? Here we would hope that the voluntary bodies will be built into the work of the agency through the projects they are undertaking. Of course the agency will be empowered to grant funds to local voluntary bodies for activities which relate to their functions and priorities as they see them at the time. We have emphasised in the Bill that the areas and communities of high social deprivation must be the first priority. That is spelled out particularly in the Bill as it stands. On this basis they will be empowered to give both capital and current expenditure type grants to voluntary bodies. This is what these voluntary bodies are starved of. They are doing their work and additional resources are needed to get them under way.

I will not bore the Minister with other quotations of the statements by his colleagues at that time.

Today the Fine Gael Party tabled an amendment to the Labour Party motion, supported as it was by all other Opposition parties. After consultations with the Fine Gael spokesman on Health I am happy to accept their amendment. We now have a united front of opposition. All Opposition parties, and Independents, will vote in favour of this resolution to insist that the decision to abolish the NSSB is rescinded, described by me and others as a mean and narrow decision. I invite the Minister to accept the inevitability of that defeat and rescind his outrageous decision to abolish the NSSB before the vote is called next week. There was an unseemly debacle last night when the Government's proposals on education did not stand the test in the House. No justification has been offered in any forum so far for the proposal in regard to the NSSB. The Minister should withdraw it this evening and announce that he is content to permit the NSSB continue their efficient, cost-effective and good work on behalf of communities throughout the country.

Mr. B. Desmond

This motion reflects the outcome of the prevailing facile and appalling political fashion that we must abolish State bodies, be they economic, environmental or social, so that we will grow in employment, in social consciousness, in the care of our people and as a society. That myth is fostered by the two parties who are joining with us tonight in opposition to the Government. I welcome the conversion of the Fine Gael and Progressive Democrats parties to the Labour Party position. We have seen that development on many fronts. In agriculture we have been told that we have to abolish AFT and ACOT to get a much better system. The prevailing mythology in regard to the environment is that An Foras Forbartha must go, and, of course, the Department of Health have a hit list drawn up by a very senior official in the Department of Finance. With a smile on his face in the middle of 1986 he got involved in the cutting exercise. He listed the HEB and it was abolished. There are now only seven of the 26 staff remaining. Staff numbers are being decimated and, for practical purposes, public health education information is gone.

The National Rehabilitation Board were to go but we got in early on that. They are still in existence. I do not think the Minister will try to abolish that board, not this year at any rate. But he turned to the National Social Service Board. Let us examine this from the point of view, strictly, of the Department of Finance — because the Minister for Finance runs Fianna Fáil now just as he ran Education last night. He nearly ran the Minister for Education out of the House with apoplexy while the Taoiseach was elsewhere, being ‘person of the year' because he wanted her to change her tack on the pupil-teacher ratio.

The Minister for Finance, through his officials, said the National Social Service Board has to go because they were not performing their functions. The Department of Health did not say the board were not performing their functions and therefore the Minister could not prove it. That argument was dropped. It was said that the National Social Service Board are a duplication of the social body politick, but that could not be proved and so the argument was dropped. It is said the argument was financial and that this board should be cut out of the subhead.

You should see them in Finance. They said that if we get rid of the subheads, Ireland will grow but of course there is no shortage of money for the National Social Service Board. In fact the Minister says twice as much money is available for this board. The arguments do not exist. The Minister for Health, unfortunately dominated by the Minister for Finance did not tell his colleague in polite political terms to get knotted. He accepted the cuts. He lay down, acquiesced, and eventually got the Secretary of the Department to make a phone call to the Director of the National Social Service Board telling him the board was being abolished but, because there was no reason he could not tell them why.

That philosophy, embroidered and developed by some of my Fine Gael colleagues when in Government, was whipped up into a beautiful Christmas cake and adopted holus bolus by the Progressive Democrats. Then the disease was transmitted across the Floor like AIDS to the Fianna Fáil Party, and they are now in a terminal condition as they begin to unravel in this House the various health and other Estimates. What does the Minister do? He is landed with this predicament so he begins to think. He decides to put the National Social Service Board in with the health boards, and sends letters of allocation to the health boards. The health boards are not very enthusiastic and the letters were withdrawn last week. This means the health boards will no longer have a subhead dealing with the community information sector. That is all gone. They are back to the drawing board again.

I have no doubt that the Minister will tell us tonight that they will give the National Social Service Board to the Department of Social Welfare. Now the Department of Social Welfare will have a non-statutory, quasi advisory body, established under the aegis of that Department, dealing with about two-thirds of the functions of the National Social Service Board. There is decentralisation for you. There is rationalisation for you. The other portion of the functions of the National Social Service Board may be devolved into a section of the Department of Health which has no staff, which is unnamed, which is losing its budget and does not even have the touch of a lottery ticket about it at this stage because it has not been allocated any money.

What will be done with the developmental functions of the National Social Service Board? They are thinking about giving them to the IPA. Tom Barrington, former director of the IPA, could write a book on the exercise of the abolition of the National Social Service Board. To make matters worse — and this is an appalling feature — on 19 July 1984 — this House set up the National Social Service Board under an Act of the Oireachtas, but the Minister said he will not repeal the Act. He will leave it there. It will be in a vacuum without a budget. It will be like a ticket that cannot win in the lottery. Meanwhile there are staff employed by the National Social Service Board, but the board have gone out of existence since July 1986. They have no chairman. They are in a kind of Fianna Fáil limbo. The staff cannot be transferred because they have contracts with the National Social Service Board, yet the board do not exist. The Act is not repealed. Fianna Fáil will tell us tonight that they have rationalised this matter for the sake of £480,000 or 0.04 per cent of the Health budget. There is health administration for you. That is Fianna Fáil control of the health system. It would be an Irish reaction to an Irish budgetary problem if it were not so serious.

We have an appalling situation: the National Social Service Board were to be transferred first to the health boards, then to the Department of Social Welfare, and now they will be an advisory body, but the statutory body will be left languishing in a statutory framework. This House is being treated with contempt by Fianna Fáil. If they want to abolish the National Social Service Board they should at least have the legislative courtesy of coming into this House and proposing the abolition by repealing the Act.

The Minister was told by his senior departmental officials — and lest he think I have some entrée to departmental thinking at this point, let me assure him that I do not, but I know he was advised — not to go down this road. He was told in no uncertain terms that the repeal of the Act would pose substantial political problems for him. He was given solid advice but he was railroaded by the Minister for Finance. Yet another notch was chalked up on the old hurley of the Department of Finance, another goal to be scored, another quango to be abolished and fiscal rectitude was to reign once again. The reaction throughout the country to the abolition of the National Social Service Board has been a salutory lesson to the Minister and the Fianna Fáil Party.

I urge the Minister to think very seriously tonight about the predicament he is in. No Minister for Health wants to ignominiously lose a vote in this House but I am very pleased to say that next Wednesday night the Opposition parties will combine to reject the Minister's decision. When the Minister has not repealed the Act and when he is defeated in the Dáil in Private Members' Time, surely this will give rise to reconsideration of this ludicrous decision to abolish this board. All the Minister has to do is appoint a new board and let them continue to carry out the functions which the old board have been performing with great competence.

The Director of the National Social Service Board, Mr. John Curry, a distinguished chairperson of the Commission on Social Welfare, reported to this House and the Department of Social Welfare. This board have done marvellous work since they were established and there is no need for this precipitous outrageous decision on the part of the Government, because no matter what criterion one adopts, be it rationalisation, functional performance or the role of the agency, there is no justification for the abolition of the National Social Service Board other then perhaps political pique — and I would not attribute that to the Minister — or simply that he was badly caught in budget negotiations.

He should now do what the Taoiseach did at his parliamentary party meeting this morning. He had a rethink on the pupil/teacher ratio and on the question of extradition — it was a very bad rethink, I do not believe he was thinking at all — when he shoved extradition on to the Attorney General and the parliamentary draftsman who made a complete mess of it. But let us not continue the mess by abolishing the National Social Service Board. I urge the Minister to consult with the staff of the Department, to take their advice and to tell the officials in the Department of Finance that the abolition of this board will not save any money. That might save their face in terms of a very bad budgetary decision.

Minister for Health (Dr. O'Hanlon)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann", where it first appears and substitute "endorses the decision of the Government to provide £1 million from funds made available by the national lottery for the further development of the services provided by the community information centres and for the support and development of voluntary community effort".

I should first of all ask the House to let me put the Government's decision in relation to the National Social Service Board in perspective. In the first place it is the board of the NSSB which is going, not the services which were provided under their auspices. Secondly, all the services which were provided by the board will be expanded and enhanced. The services provided by the community information centres will be maintained and added to. Expanded training programmes will be provided for the volunteers who man them. An enhanced fostering of community voluntary effort will be developed and specialist training will be made available through health boards by the Institute of Public Administration in, for example, regional technical colleges. Indeed it was very unfair on Deputy Desmond to ask him to speak in advance of my speech as there were many inaccuracies in his contribution which reflected poorly on the few things he said for which he was entitled to get credit.

Support for the community information centres, including training arrangements for the volunteers staffing these centres, will be the responsibility of the Department of Social Welfare. The development and training function and the expansion of voluntary community work will come under the Department of Health and the health boards. The National Council for the Aged will continue their work as heretofore.

Thirdly, there are jobs on offer for those of their staff who wish to avail themselves of them or they may opt for the voluntary redundancy package if they so wish.

Fourthly, the decision taken by the Government is entirely consistent with their policy to date in reviewing the appropriateness of all administrative boards for the development of services in which they are involved. The limited scope of the NSSB has tended to obscure the fundamental role of the health boards in promoting their partnership with the voluntary bodies.

Fifthly, the Departments of Social Welfare and Health and the health boards, will in a co-ordinated way be charged with the responsibility for the development and enhancement of their information services. Similarly they will have responsibility for the fostering of voluntary effort within the community, particularly in areas of social deprivation to fill gaps in the social services provided country wide.

Sixthly the Government's decision to allot a sum of £1 million from the national lottery funds for community information and development services is a comprehensive answer to the criticism that their decision on the NSSB represented indifference to the role of the voluntary social service bodies.

The £1 million will be apportioned as follows:

	£
Continued funding of the National Council for the Aged.	100,000
Development of the information service formerly with NSSB (this cost £239,000 in 1987)	400,000
Training and Development	500,000

In short, although the National Social Service Board will cease to operate from 31 December 1987, the services provided by them will not only be continued but there is concrete provision for their enhancement within a broader framework of encouragement for community development.

Mr. M. Higgins

With a total loss of independence.

Dr. O'Hanlon

It is unfortunate that a concerted campaign has continued so much misleading comment regarding the effects of the Government decision on the services of the NSSB. I am especially worried about the effect that these harmful allegations could have on the community information centres throughout the country. While constructive criticism of public policy is a necessary part of the democratic process, there should be proper care to avoid unnecessary distress or anxiety to the very people we profess to help. I have pointed out on a number of public occasions, in press statements, in my speech on the Health Estimate and in replies to parliamentary questions, that none of these allegations are true.

It is a rather unusual situation for me to have to defend the allocation of additional resources for a service rather than to explain the reasons for a pruning of spending. It appears that Deputy Howlin is opposed to the provision of £1 million for the development of community services.

Mr. Howlin

Was the Minister listening to me?

Dr. O'Hanlon

He seemed to object to what we are doing. I do not know if he wants to maintain the fiction that there are no health and social welfare services about which we have heard so much over the past six months.

Mr. M. Higgins

There is an independence which has been jealously opposed by the Minister's Department for years.

Dr. O'Hanlon

We will come to that in a moment. The motion is misguided in its suggestion that the decision about the NSSB was designed purely to save on the grant to that body and that the dispersal of their functions would lead to inefficiency. It might be helpful to the debate if I trace in broad outline the background to the development of the services in question. It will be seen that these services have operated under a number of different umbrellas down the years.

In 1971, the National Social Service Council were established as an unincorporated body under the aegis of the Minister for Health. They were set up in order to stimulate and encourage the formation of new voluntary social service councils, the expansion of existing councils and to provide an advisory and information service for them.

This kind of activity was, of course, complementary to the operations of the health boards themselves who have always operated in partnership with voluntary agencies in the provision of a wide range of community services.

Under section 65 of the Health Act, 1953, health boards have the power to finance other agencies for the provision of services which they may not deem it appropriate for them to operate directly. This arrangement has many advantages. It encourages an interest by local groups in the welfare of disadvantaged people in their area and it is generally agreed that it gives scope for a quality of service which in many respects is more acceptable than that available through an official agency. It continues to be Government policy to encourage this approach to the maximum extent possible.

I have always valued and acknowledged the work of the independent voluntary movement. As Minister for Health, I see it as a special duty and opportunity to protect and foster this vital spirit of independence.

Miss Colley

By taking away the structures supporting it?

Dr. O'Hanlon

An analysis of these terms of reference make it abundantly clear that the existence of the National Social Service Board was superfluous to the main statutory agencies, the Department of Social Welfare, the Department of Health and health boards. It raised the question in the Government's mind as to what precisely the role of these agencies was in relation to the functions which I have outlined, and the Government came to the conclusion that working directly or through the relevant Departments and the health boards with the various voluntary agencies concerned was for the future the more efficient way of serving the community needs in information and services. Incidentally, the Government when recognising the need for a wider approach to the promotion of health arrived at much the same conclusion about the need to transfer the functions of the Health Education Bureau to a health promotion unit within the Department of Health. In order to develop a comprehensive health promotion strategy I am putting in place a structure which will centralise a health promotion unit in the Department of Health, an advisory council on health promotion representative of the interests involved in the health status of the community and a committee under the chairmanship of the Minister for Health which will include the Ministers for the Environment, Agriculture, Education, Labour and Energy and will co-ordinate the health promotion policy.

Under the new arrangements a wider approach to the promotion of health will be undertaken in a co-ordinated manner to address the broad environmental issues which determine the health status of the community.

There is no suggestion — and I want to emphasise this strongly — that any of the functions prescribed for the NSSB is redundant nor, indeed, that the discharge of them has been defective.

The decision to discontinue funding of the NSSB after the close of this year was taken by the Government in the context of a review of the functions and activities of all bodies funded by the State. As Members know, each time a board comes up for renewal of its membership, the Government look at the board to see if there can be rationalisation and to eliminate duplication if there is any. Members of the House have been crying out for this for years.

Mr. Howlin

Rationalise from 1 to 10 — that is highly streamlined.

Dr. O'Hanlon

Now when the Government are attempting to rationalise there is concerted opposition. The problem in the House is that everybody is in favour of correcting the imbalance in payments, in controlling Government expenditure, but as soon as the Government move to do it in any one area there is concerted opposition.

Mr. Howlin

The Government cannot have it both ways.

(Interruptions.)

Mr. Howlin

It is not saving money.

Dr. O'Hanlon

We are saving money in the administration of this particular service.

(Interruptions.)

Dr. O'Hanlon

What Deputy Howlin objects to is the fact that more money will be made available to the services in the field. There will be more money available for the development of community services and less money will go on administration.

Mr. Howlin

The Minister is not saving money.

Miss Colley

Will the Minister say how much will be saved on administration?

An Ceann Comhairle

Let us hear the Minister without interruption.

Dr. O'Hanlon

Contrary to what has been said elsewhere, this review was not concerned exclusively with the economic aspects. Indeed, the real virtue of a streamlining and rationalisation of services is that the services themselves are thereby made more effective and become better co-ordinated. The size of the provision made by the Government for the new and expanded framework of social services demonstrates quite clearly that we are not engaged simply on a penny-pinching exercise. While there will be some savings in the area of administration, the Government, at the same time, are making available money which has come from the national lottery to sponsor a substantial development in community work services.

Indeed it is relevant to emphasise the point I made earlier of a narrowness of remit by pointing to the fact that £1 million allocation to this particular activity is part of a total sum of £6 million which has been allocated to the following broad sectors of health services activities: mental and physical handicap has been allocated £2,262,000, and services for the aged have been allocated £888,000. Within the next few months we will be producing comprehensive reports on the future development of the services for the mentally and physically handicapped and on the services for the aged. A sum of £700,000 has been allocated for the development of psychiatric services. A sum of £1 million has been allocated for services formerly provided by the National Social Service Board. A sum of £450,000 has been provided for the AIDS prevention programme and a sum of £700,000 has been allocated for child services including the management of cases of child abuse and alleged child abuse. That is a total of £6 million.

The bulk of these funds will go to community services and to voluntary effort in the community and it is therefore obviously necessary that there should be available countrywide an organisation of voluntary effort to ensure the use of these allocations to maximum effect. Everybody will agree that £6 million is a sizeable sum. Most of this will go to develop community based services mainly through voluntary organisations. It is important to have appropriate structures in place to ensure that we get the maximum benefit from this money.

In the course of recent discussions about the allocation of lottery funds for health services, the health boards have been very prominent in promoting the case of voluntary bodies providing services in their areas for a share in this money. This should be heartening news for people who may have believed that the health boards are heavily orientated towards provision directly of services for the sick to the exclusion of encouragement for community welfare in a broader sense. It is interesting that a number of the applications for funds from the lottery on behalf of voluntary organisations came through the local area health boards. It is wrong to suggest that it is something new to involve the area health boards in promoting voluntary effort in the community or in supporting voluntary effort in the community. In that area there is duplication between what the health boards are doing and what the National Social Service Board did, too.

Where the NSSB services were concerned, there was a clear logic in the separation of the central information-giving function from that of development and training for local voluntary organisations. There was a strong case for the development of prime responsibility for the latter function to the health boards. Once this case had been accepted, the arguments for associating the headquarters information service with the Department of Social Welfare rather than with my own Department were compelling. A substantial amount of the inquiries dealt with in the community information centres relate to social welfare entitlements. In some cases well over half of the inquiries deal with such matters.

It is appropriate that the Department of Social Welfare should have a particular interest in the survival and development of the community information centres. As Members know, over half of the work of the community information centres related to queries on social welfare.

Miss Colley

They could do it through the NSSB.

Dr. O'Hanlon

There is duplication there. The Department of Social Welfare operate an information service throughout the country. However, the nature of this service is of a somewhat different character to that provided through the community information centres. The departmental offices are the authoritative voice on the legal interpretation of rules about eligibility. It is also only fair to say, notwithstanding the criticisms frequently levelled at bureaucratic sources, that that Department's Information Service makes every effort to see that the clients who come to them with inquiries are fully informed of their rights under the social welfare code.

Nonetheless, the Social Welfare Information Service itself is fully appreciative of the particular role of the voluntary community information centres. For one thing, there is a wide network of up to 80 of these centres. They provide a bridge between the official agencies and the client which is of considerable mutual advantage. It is important to say that these community information centres will be maintained independently as heretofore. Much expensive official time is saved by persons being directed immediately towards the service appropriate to their circumstances and assisted in completing forms etc.

As the CICs are closely associated with the community, operated by persons who are known as neighbours and respected locally, they enjoy the confidence of the people they serve, who may have some hesitation about presenting their problems to an official in the first instance. I may say, from my personal knowledge of the commitment and sense of service of the people manning these centres that this public trust is fully merited.

The delivery of public information will be substantially improved with the transfer of responsibility for supporting the centres to the Department of Social Welfare. The centres will continue to be fully serviced along the present lines and will be reviewed with a view to the strengthening of their function both as regards physical lay-out and content of service and as regards their number and location.

The Department of Social Welfare will carry out all the functions in relation to the community information centres which are currently carried out by the National Social Service Board, including training of volunteers, up-dating information sources, publication of relevant information bulletins, payment of grants towards overhead costs of the centres and supporting the development of these centres and new centres. I hope that the staff of the National Social Service Board which had been working on these duties will appreciate and respond to the opportunity which is now presented by the new arrangements and the additional resources which I have made available for this work. However, as I have said earlier, to the extent that relocation is not acceptable to any of the staff they will of course be able to avail of the special voluntary redundancy terms for public servants generally.

Miss Colley

Will they be civil servants?

Dr. O'Hanlon

That will be a matter between their union representatives and the Departments concerned, the Departments of Health and Social Welfare.

Miss Colley

Will they be required to be civil servants?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The Minister, please, without interruption.

Miss Colley

Perhaps the Minister would answer; it is very important.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

We all have our own idea about importance but normally we do not interrupt.

Mr. Molloy

The object of this debate is to elicit information.

Dr. O'Hanlon

I have had numerous letters from and on behalf of community information centres all around the country expressing concern about their future. I hope these concerns have been dispelled by the details of the new arrangements now announced and I am confident that the centres will grow in strength and importance.

An important new decision of special interest to the community information centres is the proposal for establishment of an advisory committee representative of relevant interested groups which is to be set up by the Minister for Social Welfare in order to give relevant advice to the Department. This new committee will be strongly representative of the community information centres themselves. The centres will thus be directly represented at central level for the first time and will be in a special position, based on their first hand knowledge, to influence the development of policy.

Apart altogether from the plans for sustaining and extending the networks of community information centres, there will also be a review of the present arrangements about public information services generally in consultation with other relevant public bodies. It is the Government's concern to ensure that all areas of the country should be adequately and comprehensively serviced. Some research in relation to this has already been carried out. The Department will be expected to take this work up and prepare proposals and costings for submission and subsequent decision by the Government. I should make it clear that this exercise, although related to the functions of the community information centres, will be a separate undertaking. The normal running of the community information centres will not be disturbed when the National Social Service Board ceases to function on 31 December.

The development and training function of the NSSB, viz., the encouragement of the formation and growth of local voluntary effort is already a responsibility of the health boards for the support of this type of activity. This activity will be co-ordinated and developed from a special unit to be set up within the Department of Health.

Organised voluntary provision has long been a feature of Irish social services and the growth of this movement over the past couple of decades has been rapid. This growth has largely paralleled the development of the community care structure of the health boards. A central feature has been the formation of social service councils to co-ordinate voluntary and statutory services at local level.

It is timely in these days of scarce resources for services to consider how this co-operation may be further strengthened and developed. Responsibility for this must be clearly focused on the health boards. The new emphasis on the role of the health board will take place within the context of a review of policy in relation to the development of community-based social services supported by the health boards. Particular emphasis has been laid in the consultative statement on health policy Health — The Wider Dimensions on the development of community-based services.

Health boards have responsibility for a wide range of needs of the elderly, child care, the handicapped and problems arising from social disadvantage. The encouragement of local voluntary effort and the strengthening of neighbourhood networks are essential to the arrangements envisaged in the consultative statement. The implementation of this policy requires the development of programmes which respond to local needs. The health boards, which are directly in touch with local opinion, are best suited to promote such programmes. The development of support systems in the community to facilitate the process of a shift from institutional to community care is a crucial element of health policy and one to which top priority will have to be given in the coming years. This fresh impetus to local development is guaranteed by the establishment of a special development fund to finance fresh initiatives for the organisation of voluntary personal services.

It is the intention that health boards will develop formal local training programmes in consultation with educational establishments such as the regional technical colleges. There is a considerable reservoir of potential voluntary resources available within the community which can benefit hugely from such a facility. The Institute of Public Administration is being asked to undertake a central specialist training role, in association with its reorganised Health Services Unit. This will function as a resource for the voluntary organisations.

I should also like to reaffirm that the National Council for the Aged will continue to operate and to be fully financed as heretofore. This body operated quite independently of the NSSB. Its association with the NSSB was solely for administrative convenience. The council's function is to advise the Minister on all aspects of the welfare of the elderly. It has also carried out extensive research on issues affecting the elderly and has published a number of reports on problems affecting the aged.

Perhaps I should also refer to the arrangements for insurance for voluntary organisations which has been sponsored by the National Social Service Board. This was a relatively minor part of the National Social Service Board services but an important one and this facility should be maintained.

I should like to refer briefly to some points made by Deputies Howlin and Desmond. I want to assure Deputy Howlin that the community information centres will still prevail. Indeed I have no doubt but that the numbers attending them will continue to increase. They will be serviced by a unit within the Department of Social Welfare who will provide similar, if not an enhanced, service in terms of information. Training will be available to volunteers to man these services. Training for the development of organisations generally will be my responsibility as Minister for Health. We will fill that role by involving the health boards more than they are already involved. I am sure every Member of this House would agree that the health boards should be more involved in promoting community development through voluntary organisations, at all times respecting the independence of the voluntary organisations.

The National Council for the Aged is unaffected. The National Social Service Board was only a middle man who paid the cheque. The National Council for the Aged have their own advisory council and are not subject to the National Service Board. I hope the outline I have given will satisfy the House and the public at large that there will be no deterioration in the quality of the services heretofore operating under the National Social Service Board and that the generous resources now provided by the Government will ensure a substantial basis for their further development.

Mr. Allen

I would like to formally propose the amendment to the motion: To delete all words after "Accordingly" and substitute the following——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

You cannot formally propose the amendment until the Minister's amendment has been dealt with but you can speak about it.

Mr. Allen

My amendment reads:

To delete all words after "Accordingly" and substitute the following:

"noting that £1 million is being provided for community information and development services from the national lottery, Dáil Éireann resolves that this allocation should be channelled through the National Social Service Board as presently constituted and instructs the Government to rescind its decision to abolish the National Social Service Board."

I would like your permission, a Leas-Cheann Comhairle, to allow Deputy Flaherty ten minutes of my time and to allow Deputy Barnes five minutes. Consent was given earlier for a division of time.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Party arrangements such as this have to meet with the approval of the House. If the House agrees to the request I will be happy to agree.

Mr. Howlin

It has been agreed already.

Mr. Allen

I am glad the amendment we have tabled will have the support of all Opposition Deputies so that we can ensure the continuation of the National Social Service Board as an independent — I stress independent — community information service.

It is true that the Minister for Health has made many half-hearted decisions since he took office but one of the harshest decisions of all was the one to eliminate the budget of the NSSB. In 1987 this board had a budget of £580,000, £478,000 of which was for the board itself and the remaining £102,000 for the National Council for the Aged. If one breaks down this budget one can see that just under £250,000 went towards salaries — that was 52 per cent of the overall budget; £80,000 went towards administration; £19,000 went towards rent and rates and there were a number of other subheads but £114,000 went towards programmes, publications and other services for the 11 county committees.

The National Social Service Board have a lease on a premises until 1995 and no matter what happens they are legally bound to stay with that lease until that year. The rent and rates on the lease amount to £28,000 per year. Much has been said this evening about the NSSB. The Minister has a responsibility not only to that board but also to all the parties in this House to review his position in relation to the board.

My party have already stated that they support the level of spending in the health services but this support obliges the Minister to listen and to be reasonable and flexible when constructive proposals are put forward by parties in Opposition. The decision to abolish the National Social Service Board was one of the most socially regressive decisions made by any Minister for Health in this country. I made that comment during the Estimates speech earlier in the year and I have not changed my mind on the matter in any way since.

This decision proves that the Minister is an instrument for the officials in his Department and in the Department of Finance. The National Social Service Board and the Health Education Bureau have been abolished. Both of these services were independent of Department of Health officials and I believe that is the reason they were abolished. Departmental officials do not like organisations which are independent. Most people in the House will recall that when the present Taoiseach was Minister for Health there was great tension between the director of the National Social Service Council, as it was then named, and himself because of published figures in relation to social welfare payments. This created much embarrassment for the Government at that time.

Deputy Howlin also recalled your comments, Minister, about Relate magazine, the publication of the NSSB. He went into some detail on that matter and I will not repeat it.

Dr. O'Hanlon

He did not quote what the Minister said at the time.

Mr. Allen

I did not utter a word when you spoke.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

Deputy Allen should address the Chair and it might not encourage the Minister to reply.

Mr. Allen

It would appear from what was said that not only are the Minister's officials against the existence of the board but that the Taoiseach and the Minister seem to have their own reasons for axing it. The Minister's stance with regard to this board must be reviewed for the following reasons. First, the integrity and usefulness of the information service depends on the independence of that service as perceived by the voluntary community information centres throughout the country. About 100,000 people avail of these services every year. I have been told by officials within the organisation that the number availing of these services has increased dramatically since the controversy about the future of the board erupted some time ago. Many more people are now availing of the services as a result of the publicity it got because of the threat to its existence.

Secondly, there is no economic justification for the decision to abolish the board. Redeployment of staff will mean that 52 per cent of the present cost of the service will continue to be paid. If attempts are made to continue the service through the health boards and Government Departments it will be necessary to provide funding and, as we have already heard tonight, this will be even more expensive than the service that existed. It is obvious that it will be more expensive as the Minister is now allocating £1 million from the national lottery to continue the service. This amount is being dispersed through the health boards, the Department of Health and the Department of Social Welfare. Surely it is the utmost fallacy, even bordering on lunacy, to take the service from one efficient body and diffuse it to ten alternative agencies. Surely it is rationalisation which is irrational.

The Government state that the backup service for the community information centres is to be rationalised by putting the funding under the health boards and the advisory backup either under the Department of Health or the Department of Social Welfare or both. This means that there will be ten agencies dealing with one service. I repeat that it is sheer madness to carry on an exercise such as this.

The other services such as publications and the development of voluntary organisations were not mentioned by the Government until this evening. Everything that is now planned can be done by the NSSB in an independent way. I seriously question the Minister's policy as announced this evening. The axing of the board means that everything the Minister has already said about the elderly and about community services was just lip service since he is now even abolishing the Council for the Aged.

Dr. O'Hanlon

We are not abolishing it.

Mr. Allen

Killing off the National Social Service Board means that the various services such as meals on wheels will be limited in their development.

Dr. O'Hanlon

That is not true.

Mr. Allen

They will lose their independence. They will be controlled by the health boards which are at the moment the most inefficient units in health. A number of insensitive and anti-social decisions have been made by this Government since taking office. The elimination of the NSSB, along with the reduction in the role of the Office of Ombudsman, are definitely anti-social as these two organisations represented the voice of the voiceless. The closure of this board is one of the most cynical acts performed by a Government who, prior to the last election, assured us that the less well off, the handicapped and the elderly would not suffer because of cuts in expenditure.

It is now obvious that the Minister's concern is partly about saving and partly about taking independence from the NSSB. The Minister said it was a decision not about cost cutting but about reorganisation. Since £1 million has now been made available from the national lottery for community information and development services there is no reason not to agree with the amendment put down here tonight by my party. Since 1987 the poor have become poorer, the disadvantaged more disadvantaged and the privileged more privileged. The NSSB gives a service to the people who cannot help themselves and do not have access to the resources of the State.

The number of families in the Cork area depending on the St. Vincent de Paul has increased by a massive 80 per cent this year. An organisation like the NSSB is a lifeline for such people. Poverty is not entirely about lack of money; it is about lack of opportunity and lack of access to State agencies and State services, educational or otherwise. There is now serious poverty all over the country and bodies like the NSSB and the Office of the Ombudsman are links between disadvantaged sections of the community and the State. These links, because of recent decisions, are becoming more and more fragile. There is an ever-widening division between the rich and poor. Irish society is in great danger if we do not realise that because of the ever-increasing poverty gap many people are being alienated from the structures of the State. There are organisations who will, for their own political reasons, exploit the poverty gap. The NSSB represent an independent lifeline to State services and this is now threatened. If the activities of the community information services offices are limited in any way or if their independence is threatened these services will be supplied by organisations that appear to have the resources to exploit the gap and they will exploit the frustrations and anxieties of the people who are suffering because of cutbacks.

A recent opinion poll showed that a substantial majority of Irish people who are not living in poverty are satisfied with what they have and that there is a wealth of goodwill towards any Government that set about the task of eliminating poverty in a genuine way in this country. Inaccessibility to State services is the fundamental basis of poverty. The Minister is creating a greater divide between the haves and the have nots. Poverty is where people are denied access to what is regarded as a reasonable quality of life, a reasonable standard of education, health etc. The Minister's decision to eliminate the board is a denial of people's rights.

To conclude, I must refer to the recent publication The Widening Poverty Gap by the Conference of Major Religious Orders which gives a frightening statistic. I refer also to the publication today by the Combat Poverty Agency. The main conclusion of this body which was published today in a study entitled, A Case for An Independent Community Service, is that there is a need for greater public access to information on the operation of the social welfare services not only at the point of application but throughout the process of the claim. The Commission on Social Welfare has also endorsed the need for greater public information on an independent basis. That same report which we received today says, in the concluding paragraph, that the implications of abolishing the NSSB will be particularly serious for the poor and is of great concern to the Combat Poverty Agency, that without the services provided by the NSSB, local information centres and the necessary central back-up, access to State services is made more difficult for all. For the poor for whom State services are a lifeline, curtailment of the information services has serious consequences. I ask the Minister to reconsider his decision before the vote is taken next Wednesday night because certainly his proposal will be defeated by all the Opposition parties here if he does not.

Miss Flaherty

I am glad I have the opportunity of contributing and I thank Deputy Allen for sharing his time with me. Tonight I have heard the most extraordinary dressing up of what in retrospect was clearly a daft decision in the first place, to abolish the National Social Service Board. The Minister has now couched it in terms of being the most extraordinary initiative in the support and development of community services.

I would like to draw the Minister's attention to the fact that it was Erskine Childers, a former Minister of his own Party, who in 1971 set up the NSSB — a council at the time — for the purpose of developing and strengthening voluntary organisations. If the Minister is serious in his commitment to the development of community services, I suggest there is a great deal he could do in the direct services, which are the responsibility of his Department, by developing community nursing and day care centres instead of closing them down as has been the pattern, without starting to interfere in the whole voluntary area which was developing quite nicely under the aegis of the NSSB.

This decision is being justified in retrospect in the most extraordinary fashion. Is the Minister seriously suggesting that this is a major response, that £1 million out of the £1.2 billion which we spent on health is a serious contribution towards altering the balance of our health services? I say it is not. I say it is dressing up a decision that is indefensible without going to these extraordinary lengths. If it was so well planned and so well thought out, why was it only this week that the Minister was able to indicate that the community information services would be run from the Department of Social Welfare?

Mr. Howlin

It was thought up on Thursday.

Miss Flaherty

It was only thought up this week. I suggest that at this stage alone, and certainly by the time the Minister has gone through dealing with the board and making all the changes that are necessary and initiating contacts with health boards, he will have spent the other half million pounds in the valuable time of his officials and health board officials. Those people who have been developing this service could well use that extra half million pounds.

This decision has two features that seem to be appearing in an awful lot of the decisions of this Government. I have no doubt, despite how the Minister dresses it up, that what actually happened was the Minister needed another half million off his budget and it was slashed to satisfy the Department of Finance. It was only when the Minister looked at the detail and had to commit himself to maintaining the staff and the services that it became clear the net saving was so small and he adopted a new policy that it was not economic but reorganisational and developmental. I do not accept that. It has two features common to many decisions. On paper it had an economic benefit in cost cutting terms. Also this agency is independent and accessible to people. It is now going the same way as the Ombudsman's office, support for which is being withdrawn, An Foras Forbartha which is being axed and the advisory agricultural agencies to which the ordinary farmer has access.

Debate adjourned.