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.