JOINT COMMITTEE ON EUROPEAN AFFAIRS debate -
Wednesday, 2 Feb 2005

Lisbon Strategy: Presentation.

Chairman

The second item on the agenda is a discussion with representatives of Community Platform on strengthening the social dimension of the Lisbon strategy. As members will probably remember, we asked Orla O'Connor, Robin Hanan and Eric Conroy to come back to the committee not to make an argument about why this was important but on how they thought we could help in pushing forward the social dimension of the Lisbon strategy.

Before the presentation, I draw your attention to the fact that while members of this committee have absolute privilege the same privilege does not extend to you. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that members should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official by name in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

Mr. Hanan might refresh us on the issues and introduce his colleagues.

Mr. Robin Hanan

We represent Community Platform, an alliance of 26 national organisations working against poverty and inequality in Ireland. In our submission we list the names of the organisations. I am from the European Anti-Poverty Network Ireland and my colleagues, who were present at our last meeting with you, are Orla O'Connor from the National Women's Council of Ireland and Eric Conroy from the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed.

To recap, we want to avoid repeating everything we said the last time because even though a number of members were not able to attend because of other commitments, I am sure they do not want us to repeat everything that was said the last time. At the last presentation we make a submission which laid out our concerns about the European Union's Lisbon strategy, particularly that the social cohesion and social inclusion dimensions of the Lisbon strategy seemed to be stalled and that in the mid-term review of the strategy, which is going on at present five years into the strategy, most of the discussion seemed to centre on one of the four pillars of the strategy, that of competitiveness.

The original Lisbon strategy was seen as an economic and social strategic plan for the European Union which was designed to prepare the EU to compete more effectively in a more globalised world through drawing on its traditional strengths of social cohesion, social inclusion, a relatively strong tradition of welfare and social rights, employment rights and so on. We were concerned that much of the debate about the mid-term review of the Lisbon strategy, which will come to a head at the spring Council, concentrated very much on only aspect of that strategy, that of competitiveness.

At the last session, we outlined a number of proposals we made in terms of strengthening the social inclusion aspect of the strategy, which I will not go into because they are on record. If members wish we can recirculate them or go into more detail about those aspects of strengthening the social cohesion and social inclusion side.

At the last meeting, there was some discussion about the possibility of the committee taking an initiative to follow up the report which it did last summer about the competitiveness aspects of the Lisbon strategy. We thank the committee for inviting us back to discuss this in more detail. The paper we circulated before this meeting lays out a number of proposals on some of the areas which we believe it would be useful for the committee to take up or to produce some thinking on to fill out the picture which was partly sketched in the report last summer and to look at some of the social inclusion and social cohesion aspects of the strategy.

We make the proposals under three main headings. One is strengthening the social inclusion strategy. The second is making the employment strategy work for inclusion or ensuring that the employment strategy which forms part of the Lisbon Agenda works to include people in the labour market. Rather than simply being seen as a way of increasing the number of jobs in its own right it should also provide paths to employment for people who are furthest from the labour market and quality employment. The third heading is mainstreaming gender equality in the Lisbon Agenda.

Our first question is the question which was left hanging at the last meeting, that is, what way the committee is involved in making an input into the mid-term review of the Lisbon strategy and how we can contribute to that. We have made a proposal in that regard. There is a strong emphasis at European Union level on the importance of national parliaments having an input into the Lisbon strategy and that is being handled in different ways in different countries. There was some discussion at the last meeting about the committee producing its own report on the social inclusion and social cohesion aspects of Lisbon in terms of a few specific proposals and our paper is oriented around ideas on that.

Senator Quinn

I have considered the document carefully and I am impressed by the objectives and what the group is trying to achieve. We are familiar with the adage that if one gives a man a fish, one feeds him for a day but if one teaches him to fish, one feeds him for life. My concern is that sometimes the steps we take are solutions that solve the immediate problem but do not solve the long-term problem. I am particularly concerned about the link between poverty and unemployment. We must find a solution for that core of people. Ireland has the lowest unemployment figure in Europe but the same core group of people remains unemployed.

I was involved for five years with the new leaving certificate applied. This identified that those who lost out at school tended to do so early in their education. They were at the back of the class and were the pupils who did not keep up with the rest. This could have happened at five, ten or 15 years of age. They then lost confidence and because of that, their performance went lower and lower and the differences between them and the high achievers were such that they never improved. These were identified as the people who became the core unemployed group. They were not only unemployed but probably unemployable.

With the leaving certificate applied one could identify the ability of somebody to achieve something. There is an old saying to the effect that nobody is good at everything but everybody is good at something. It might well be the case that a youngster at the back of a class who was not good at mathematics or literature was brilliant at gardening or something else. If one could find that youngster's ability and build on it, the confidence grew.

My concern is that the emphasis does not seem to be on getting to the fundamental long-term solution. The danger is that we solve the problem by propping up those who have fallen out of the system rather than getting at the core solution which is to ensure that they never get to the bottom in the first place. I have learned in business over the years that if one manages to find somebody's ability and concentrate on that, they blossom and gain in confidence and suddenly become good at other things as well. If, when people fail in one area, one can identify what they are good at, they gain in confidence doing that. They are then recognised by their colleagues and gain in confidence elsewhere.

I am concentrating on the area of employment because I am not sure that we have a solution in that area. I fear that in Ireland, because we see employment and high income employment coming from highly skilled people, we are quite correctly pumping more money into technology and science education but the danger is that we will leave behind the core group I mentioned. These are the socially excluded. Can the group comment on whether we could do more in Europe, particularly under the Lisbon Agenda which includes a reference to it? We do not seem to be getting close to a solution.

Mr. Eric Conroy

I welcome the Senator's remarks. He made some good points. They are taken on board in the national employment action plan and the European employment strategy, which are part of the employment strategy in the Lisbon Agenda. They all work together. With regard to the issue of early school leaving, there is a major correlation between it and long-term unemployment. I gather Ireland is doing a little better but Europe is not doing well in terms of 90% achievement of completion. That is a key issue and we want to see implementation of the references to education in the employment guidelines and the national employment action plan and as part of the wider Lisbon Agenda.

There are also issues such as inter-generational unemployment. People at the margins, despite the Celtic tiger economy, did not get the jobs. Their parents are unemployed too. There are unemployment blackspots. The business of getting and working the social capital to get a job is not there. Programmes such as community employment, jobs initiative and social economy are most important. They have been reduced in recent years and we have been given a black mark by Europe for our performance in ALMPs, active labour market programmes. There was some movement last year but more is required in terms of active measures to get people ready for jobs.

The Senator mentioned high tech jobs. That is an important issue arising from the Tánaiste, Deputy Harney's, report. We welcome the move to high tech jobs but it should not create a two tier society. We want jobs across all social groups. Not everybody can aspire to be a professor or to graduate from a university. There should be jobs at all levels and I cannot see any reason that there should not be.

Throughout the country many jobs are being lost. Many jobs are centred in the services area in Dublin and the mid-east but we must not forget about the jobs lost in Kerry, Donegal and outlying areas. The Lisbon Agenda refers to regional disparities in unemployment. We must spread employment creation through all regions so everybody is converging towards the employment goals in the agenda.

I welcome the Senator's comments. Hopefully, we can implement the social side of the Lisbon Agenda.

Senator McDowell

I welcome the delegation. There is a real difficulty with the Lisbon Agenda. It was a political agreement at the time which was a compromise between people of different political views in Europe. The pillar type arrangement was an attempt to balance those views.

I will outline where the difficulty arises. Most governments in Europe, which are largely Christian democratic in hue, see the poverty and the social inclusion targets as the end result but they see competitiveness and the employment strategies as the way to get there. Frankly, at times there is a disconnect between the two. If poverty is reduced by doing things that Europe wants to do anyway, such as increasing competitiveness, well and good.

There is a problem because we do not have an integrated labour market. The type of labour market interventions that might be made in Germany, with its employment and social structure, will be completely different from what might be appropriate in Ireland, which has virtually full employment and where people who are unemployed have particular difficulties which must be addressed by specific direct intervention.

I am being sceptical but I wonder if there is any real value beyond saying that it would be nice to reduce poverty by pretending that there is a genuine social inclusion agenda as part of Lisbon because, frankly, I am not persuaded that there is. I would like to think there was and that it was attainable but I am a little sceptical of that.

Mr. Hanan

What the Senator said is largely correct. On the last occasion we talked about the difference between the way the EU approaches market and employment issues compared with the way it approaches issues such as social inclusion. What was, and what is, important about the Lisbon Agenda is that it set in process a whole series of co-ordination mechanisms between governments to achieve social inclusion objectives, that is, the same objectives in different ways. The open method of co-ordination, the fact that it centred around the aim of making a decisive impact on poverty by 2010 and the fact countries must report on a two yearly basis on what they are doing against a very comprehensive set of objectives agreed at European level is important.

What the Lisbon Agenda gave the social inclusion process was a very strong political drive, that is, the fact it was named at European level as being one of the main priorities. It gave it the mechanism for monitoring, comparing and learning. The term "name and shame" is one people in the Commission like to use. It also means looking in a fairly comprehensive way at the way different countries deal with issues such homelessness, drug abuse, access to employment, disability rights and so on. However, that is only an instrument governments need to use. Since we are looking at a very broad, open method of co-ordination, the success or failure of the social inclusion strategy depends entirely on how much political drive there is behind it at government level.

Our worry is that the Lisbon Agenda seems to be a symptom of simply withdrawing from that whole process. There was a commitment five years ago to take social inclusion seriously. That is from where the fairly detailed objectives and all these co-ordination mechanisms come. It is a signal and amounts to withdrawing the resources from making that happen. We believe the type of competitiveness outlined in the Lisbon strategy was a compromise between different approaches but it was also a fairly coherent vision. There was a vision of working from Europe's strength compared with the US, for example, or some of the other big markets, with a relatively cohesive economy, a relatively highly trained workforce and a relatively involved inclusive society and using that as a strength to build on rather than simply undercutting costs.

One of the things which has come out very clearly in the past number of years is that while there are more jobs available, there are also a lot more poor quality jobs. The EU Commission's statistics show that three quarters of people who it describes as experiencing poverty are in jobs. As described, there is the problem in this country of a large group of people who cannot access work because of various barriers, whether training or physical barriers in the case of disabled people or whether it is as a result of the type of barriers about which the Senator spoke in terms of building up personal supports needed to get back to work. There are also a large number of people going back to work but it has not taken them out of poverty. The work is simply not well enough paid, secure enough and of good enough quality to break that cycle of poverty.

It is true that when we talk about the Lisbon strategy we are partly talking about symbols; about political commitments made at European level by all 25 governments and not just those of a particular political hue. The fact that governments seem to be pulling back from that and are looking at another way of handling the competitiveness issue is very worrying in terms of the impact it will have on people's lives. It is also a very specific set of mechanisms. In the employment area, they have a little more legal weight behind them with the treaty. The new draft treaty on the EU constitution has a couple of provisions which should give the same sort of legal weight to the social inclusion strategy but again only if they are used by governments.

I think the Senator is right about the difference between aspiration in the social inclusion area and legislation in some of the other areas, for example, industrial policy. The mid-term review of the Lisbon Agenda is one of the most important places where the European Union talks about where it is going. That is why we were very keen for this debate, whether in the media or at this committee.

Senator Bradford

As we had an interesting discussion at our last meeting, I do not want to rehearse what was said. Senator McDowell gave an overview of the political background to most of the economic decisions being taken at European level. It now appears that regardless of who wins elections in Europe, there is a fairly narrow degree of economic difference and limited change from one administration to the next vis-à-vis economic policy. Does Mr. Hanan believe the broader Lisbon Agenda or strategy can be implemented within the terms of that fairly narrow political discourse and the sort of economic agendas set by governments from Ballyferriter to Berlin, perhaps of different colours but with the same politics? Is this project possible?

In the domestic sphere, we have had partnership agreements in recent decades and much of this is happening. It might be coming from Europe but it is already happening. On the broader aspirations which I know all of you would passionately advocate, can they happen politically within present government confines and configurations?

Mr. Hanan

There are two questions. One is can it happen realistically and economically and the other is will it happen politically. We would argue that in both cases the answer must be "Yes". Economically, we still hold by the basic thinking behind the original Lisbon strategy which is that the European Union's strengths come from a particular niche in terms of a particularly cohesive society and a level of stability in our economies. I do not think anyone realistically believes Europe will undercut China in terms of labour prices or less protected workforces. Nor do I think there is any real drive for us to go out and compete in that type of marketplace in terms of labour costs. The only way we can compete is in terms of added value.

One of the things the Lisbon Agenda identified is that there is relatively low participation in the workforce. For one reason or another, many people are not able to participate, or see no advantage in terms of their lives in taking part, in the labour force. If we continue to see the levels of child poverty we have seen in this country, one is automatically ruling out a future generation of workers or of people who can contribute to society in a many different ways. That, in itself, must undermine our competitiveness. If the new Lisbon goal sets out an aspiration to have a more highly trained workforce and a much greater involvement by that workforce but does nothing about the quality of pre-school education or about the poverty which drives people out of effectively taking part in education from quite a young age, the package will not hold together. That is the competitiveness side.

The strategy laid out is a realistic one and is one which the Commission and the governments bought into at the time. Whether it will happen politically is probably a question we should put back to this committee representing the Oireachtas and the political parties. There is a strong commitment from Ireland. Ireland has taken some very important initiatives at European level, for example, in the past year around the new EU constitution. Previously, in starting up the EU social inclusion strategy, Ireland played an important role contributing to that. Going back to the 1970s and the first poverty programmes, Ireland has taken quite a strong leadership role in terms of setting a political agenda for a more inclusive Europe. We cannot predict the outcomes of these types of discussions in Parliaments throughout Europe but we believe it is a necessary project economically and politically. If one looks at the European barometer polls when they ask people in the 25 EU member states what is the main issue the EU needs to tackle, poverty and social inclusion come at the top of the list.

Europe cannot just continue to be about completing the Internal Market and becoming more competitive, particularly if this undermines people's lives. The answer is that in economic terms it is viable and that in political terms we regard it as being necessary, particularly from the point of view of the type of organisations we are trying to represent, the people affected by inequality with whom we work, society and the European project itself.

Senator McDowell

I respectfully disagree with Senator Bradford about whether there is political difference. There is a broad level of political difference which is hugely important. Any objective observer considering the past eight to ten years of the Irish boom would say that our primary mechanism — it is arguably the only such mechanism — for tackling poverty has been the employment strategy. To be fair, this has been very successful in that it has reduced the number of people in consistent poverty to quite an extent. It has also done a little, though not very much, in terms of reducing relative poverty. The difficulty is that we are left with a hard core in respect of which direct intervention is required.

There are many people currently in poverty, particularly those who do not have jobs, who are disconnected from or have a loose connection with the labour market. As Mr. Hanan stated, these people may be disabled, they may be lone parents, they may have health problems or they may be drug addicts or ex-offenders. From working with the Northside Partnership in Coolock, I am aware that people in the categories I have outlined comprise a significant percentage of those who do not have jobs. In my opinion, the difficulty these people face in entering the labour market, in so far as they can or want to, is not being addressed at present by the employment strategy or by other measures the Government has taken. We have used one trick which has been important and successful but which has failed to address the residual level of poverty. To that extent, I disagree with Senator Bradford's assertion that there is not a broad range of political choices available.

Ms Orla O’Connor

The Senator is right when he states that the policy has been that the route out of poverty is to get a job. Obviously, however, a certain number of people are disconnected from that. In addition, that policy has produced gross inequalities which have given rise to current statistics for relative poverty which are the highest in Europe. I accept that I said this at the previous meeting but there is also an issue of sustainability. How sustainable is the policy in light of the inequalities that are arising? Such inequalities are particularly relevant to women who have re-entered the workforce. They have experienced difficulties in terms of child care, part-time work and social welfare. It is not sustainable to continue to proceed as we are at present. There are serious issues in terms of work-life balances and employment policies. In conjunction with considering consistent poverty and the people who are completely disconnected from the labour force, there is also the issue of gross inequalities for people who are in employment.

Senator McDowell

I could not agree more. Making available universal services to people, whether they are in the labour market or not, is crucial. We have done very little work on that. We do not have social supports in place in a number of areas, one of which is that of pre-school. Even within the social security system, we do not have the broadness we require to ensure that people who fall through the net do not get lost. I agree with Ms O'Connor. We have done well because we have had an economic boom. However, we are not geared up to deal very well with recession. If there were a recession, the results could be quite catastrophic for many people.

Ms O’Connor

It would be useful from our perspective, in terms of the direction the committee is going to take in respect of the mid-term review and how it intends to engage with it, to know if the committee will be producing a report.

Chairman

We are initially proposing to include this in our work programme which is being formulated at present. We are then going to write to each Department asking them to give weight to it. The third option we can take is to issue a statement which could be laid before the Houses as a report. Our guests' statement could be included as an appendix to that. We can agree on the first two quite readily. However, I would rather wait until entering private session to discuss the laying of the report before the Houses and appending our guests' statement to it. I do not have a difficulty with proceeding in this way but I want to obtain members' views. Those are my suggestions as to how we proceed.

Mr. Conroy

What sort of timescale will be applied? The spring Council will take place in March or early April and it is now February. As this is the only time of the year that Heads of Government address the mid-term review, we are looking for maximum impact. We have not seen the report from the Commission which will inform the meeting of the plenary on social partnership. The latter will discuss the Lisbon Agenda. It should, therefore, all come together in terms of a maximum impact on the second half of the decade. The input should influence those at the highest level in the coming months.

Chairman

As far as members are concerned, we can do that immediately. I will communicate, if the committee decides to take that course of action, with our guests as regards the laying of the report before the Houses at a later date.

Senator McDowell

I wish to ask a final question. A number of years ago the Government decided to ask individual Departments to poverty-proof measures then intended to take. Do our guests believe this made a difference or was it merely gesture politics?

Mr. Hanan

One could say it made a small difference but not as much as could have been the case. Poverty-proofing has been in place for seven years since the introduction of the first national anti-poverty strategy. It took a number of years, for example, for poverty statements to emerge with the budget. In the main areas of Government policy, poverty-proofing is seen more as an add-on to rather than a central part of thinking. When major new initiatives are introduced, Departments are required to include a poverty-proofing statement in the memorandum for Government. It is possible that such statements make a slight difference to memorandums but, effectively, there is no major change. A great deal of work is being done behind the scenes by the Combat Poverty Agency and the Office of Social Inclusion to train people in Government Departments and co-ordinate the implementation of poverty-proofing.

Poverty-proofing has made a difference around the margins. We are of the opinion, however, that it has not changed any major or substantial new policies. It is not just about ensuring that poverty is addressed more strongly, it is also meant to try to prevent policies from moving backwards. We could name a number of policies in recent years which have increased poverty and social exclusion such as, for example, direct provision for asylum seekers and the removal of the right to work — which had been granted for one year — from asylum seekers. In our view, the latter clearly increases rather than reduces poverty and there was no sign that the policy was poverty-proofed. The changes in the community employment schemes have come and gone. There has been much inconsistency in respect of some measures in this regard which, in the short-term, have either improved or disimproved the situation. There is very little indication that the thinking behind them employed a poverty-proofing approach.

Poverty-proofing is a mechanism that can be used but people need to buy into it. The change of thinking that occurred in this country in the 1980s in terms of the national deficit and reorganising the public finances was a form of proofing which obliged every official to take it into account in every decision they made. One can say that most decisions taken by Government are largely international investment confidence-proofed. I do not believe poverty-proofing has taken off in the same way.

One of the issues we highlight in respect of poverty-proofing is that it is largely a system which relies on individual officials to make assessments of the impact of their proposals. It would be useful if an outside body such as the Oireachtas — although it would probably not be the role of this committee to do so — agreed to examine poverty-proofing statements to discover the impact of particular proposals. I refer here to considering the impact of the budget on increases or reductions in poverty, the impact of employment actions plans, etc. Part of the problem is it has not been part of public debate and it has been simply a check box exercise.

Chairman

I thank the delegation for its submission and for attending.

The joint committee went into private session at 3.30 p.m. and adjourned at 3.45 p.m. sine die.