The Appropriation Bill debate affords Members of this House an opportunity to stand back from specific issues and proposals, to assess the performance of the Government over the past 12 months and indeed its fitness and suitability as a Government for Ireland in the 1980's. The unusual feature of this Appropriation Bill is the fact that it includes a very large amount for the Supplementary Estimates totalling £463,500,000. This has given rise to fairly widespread speculation about the possibility of paving the way for an early election. This kind of speculation seems to me to reflects a very poor degree of political commentary at present. Perhaps this, in itself, reflects a lack of depth and a lack of maturity in the political climate, indeed I would even say in the political education in the country. I say this not in the spirit of somebody seeking to lecture but in the spirit of somebody who is trying to stand back from the immediate issues and analyse the position in which we find ourselves at the end of the first year of this decade. If you examine the political commentary at present, most of it is spent in the realm of political personalities, of pre-occupation with individuals and a sort of one-dimensional assessment of how those individuals are performing, with a very superficial and inadequate assessment of how in fact the politicians and Government and indeed the leaders of the community as a whole are responding to the range of challenges and indeed to the reality in Ireland today.
I believe it is fair to say that there is a lack of political maturity in the approach of political commentators and of the media as a whole. I feel that this perhaps reflects a very conservative and inadequate conditioning that we have as a whole, as a people. This stems right from the educational system. We are not encouraged in the educational system, our children are not encouraged and our young people are not encouraged, to stand back from their society, look at it and see, in a real context, how, for example, the wealth of this country and its resources are divided, used and allocated. This means that in political life there is at the moment a striking lack of real leadership. Senator Jago referred to what he saw as being the role of the Government, that it is limited to creating a climate in society in which things can happen. If one accepts Senator Jago's point I believe fundamentally that this Government are creating the wrong climate for the kind of society that we have and for the kind of challenges which that society poses for us at the moment. This is the appropriate debate in which to try to make that point as clearly and as succinctly as possible.
First of all, there is nothing in the approach of the present Government which reflects the need to bring home to the people, including the social partners, the educationalists, including indeed every family in the country, that we have this immense challenge and very new situation of a growing population and of a very young population. If the Government were to create a genuine climate then it would be one of radical leadership at this time, one of constantly bringing home the need for very different sorts of policies, both for creating wealth and for redistributing the wealth of this country. I do not say that in a pessimistic fashion. I am convinced that Ireland has the advantages of natural resources, the, advantages of a young population, the advantages of its location in a rather privileged corner of western Europe and the potential of tapping much more cohesiveness and much more goodwill in the nation than we have begun to try to harness. Instead of that we see a Government which appears to be prepared, at whatever price, to favour the better-off because they are the stronger voices in our society, to distribute income towards those who already have income, to give home improvement grants to those who already have homes, at the cost of lengthening the housing crisis for those who are homeless. They appear to be prepared to take taxation measures which favour the better-off. I propose to make very specific reference to what this does in our society, and to ask the Minister of State, who is here representing the Government in this debate, to answer very specifically some of the questions I will raise.
It is necessary, first of all, to refer to the seriousness of the present crisis in which we find ourselves. This has to be done because of the unreal optimism in which the Taoiseach and other members of the Government speak about our position at present. It is fair to say that this may very well be in the hope of generating some sort of false climate in which to have a general election. I have no particular view on whether we are likely to have a general election in the very near future. But I think that the unreal optimism of Ministers means that either they do not know what is happening, which is hard to credit, or else that they feel that the approach is better to be one of misleading rather than giving the basic different kind of leadership than we have really ever had in this State since we gained independence, because the nature of the State is radically different from the kind of country that we have had. We are not an ageing, declining population which can afford conservative measures, which can afford to muddle along as it has done before. We are the fastest growing and youngest country in the European Community. We are not beginning to create the society, in Senator Jago's words, which will allow us to reflect the adequate economic and social policies for this population.
The proof is there at present, if one looks at the number of unemployed. Unemployment at the end of November amounted to 115,000 on the live register figures alone. This constituted an increase of 30,000 in 12 months. That by any standards cannot be regarded as a successful performance. And, as is well recognised — and indeed as Fianna Fáil in Opposition stressed again and again — these figures on the live register are an under-estimate. When account is taken of those working systematic short-time and those who do not show up on the live register, in particular the number of women workers who do not show up on the live register when they become unemployed, the true unemployment figure is well in excess of 150,000.
Once again, not surprisingly, these unemployment figures show a distressing pattern of youth unemployment. According to the figures published this month, there are 38,000 unemployed young people between the ages of 15 and 21, and this number is on the increase. That is a very sad reflection. It is a failure by our society to provide opportunities for our young population, at whatever cost and as the first priority of our Government.
There are other indications of seriousness. Reference has already been made to the extent of our borrowing abroad, to the balance of payments problem. There has been a turndown in investment. From the IDA to the FUE and the CII, alarm bells have been sounding about our competitiveness, about our prospects of creating future employment. Already emphasis has been placed — and this is right — on the agricultural sector and on the crisis in agriculture. There is absolutely no doubt that part of our wealth, part of our resource is our agriculture. One of the ways to provide for our people is by having a sound and supported agricultural sector.
It is in such a depressed condition that the farmers have become the marchers and the protesters of the eighties, and this appears to be likely to continue. It is understandable from the figures. Farmers' real earnings fell by around 26 per cent in 1980 and they had dropped by 23 per cent in 1979. The prospects do not look good for agriculture over the next few years because cattle numbers have been depleted in a very serious fashion. Cattle numbers are down by 450,000 at the end of this year compared with December 1979. That is very serious both for the farmers concerned and for our balance of payments over the next few years.
There is a crisis of confidence and a lack of belief that the Government will cope. The reaction to the opinion of the European Court in the 2 per cent levy case, the opinion of the Advocate-General, was indicative of the lack of confidence the farmers have at the moment in a genuine understanding of their position. That 2 per cent levy was criticised very heavily when it was brought in. I believe it was brought in as a very hasty and ill-thought through measure. It appears now that there is at least a case to be made that it is contrary to Community law. We await the judgment of the Court of Justice at the end of January on the case. It is only an example of an approach to the basic resource of agriculture which reflects, I believe, a pandering to short-term interests, a reaction of a fire brigade nature to particular problems, rather than a structured approach with clear social priorities, clear priorities of ensuring a basic standard of living and a proper distribution of and creation of wealth in our society.
I should like to turn to a report which highlights the criticisms I have been making more than any other that I could refer to. This is the final report of the poverty committee which was published and presented to the Minister earlier this week. This report speaks eloquently for the selfish and unresponsive society that we are. It also speaks for the attitude of the Government in that those involved on the combat poverty committee have been given redundancy notice. It appears that the pilot projects are being phased out. It appears that the committee, in other words, have got the cold shoulder from the Government and that whatever may continue, if it continues at all, will be extremely limited and very much research-orientated, back into the safe pastures of more academic research rather than the — I can almost hear the word used — subversive areas of action-orientated projects on the ground, which actually encourage people to help themselves to develop knowledge, and through knowledge, a sense of how to exercise just a limited power in relation to their own lives.
This runs counter to so much of the paternalistic political climate of this country that it must be worrying to those who have come out of and who depend on a paternalistic and centralised power structure. We should reflect on the work of the poverty committee, the analysis in that report and the response — the response by the Government and the response by us as a people — to that report. Therefore I should like to turn briefly to some passages in the report, starting first with a brief extract from the preface by Sister Stanislaus Kennedy where she refers to a striking figure of inequality in this country. I believe there is greater relative inequality in this country than in any other country in the European Community at this moment, greater relative inequality, greater disparity between those who are well off and those who are the bottom, those who are in dire poverty. We have extreme poverty and comparatively greater polarisation between rich and poor in Ireland.
In her preface she refers to an assessment of living standards in Ireland and says that the 1978 Household Budget Survery showed that:
...the top 20 per cent of households received 43.4 per cent of the national income, whereas the share of the bottom 20 per cent of households is just 4.5 per cent. Poverty does not come about by accident. Rather our system is planned in such a way that poverty is an integral part of it, emerging from social, economic and educational policies which favour the non-poor. The whole structure of our society is underpinned by a philosophy which is totally inimical to the poor.
That quotation sums up the essence of the criticism of a Government of Ireland at the start of the 1980s who are inimical to a poor, growing, young population, and who in their structures and approach favour those who are better off, those who are already the established people in our society. This leads to a situation of inequality, cynicism, bitterness, vandalism and all the other ills which stem from this creation of climate by the Government. I should like to refer to the expenditure on the poverty committee because it might appear from some reporting that it is the cost factor that prevents the continuation and, indeed, expansion of the work under the general umbrella of the poverty committee.
If one looks at the appendix on page 301 of the report one sees the financial implications of the programme since its establishment. We are talking about very small amounts of money. We are talking about a substantial part of that very small funding being contributed by the European Community. So it is not a question of cost. It has to be a question of priorities and, indeed, of a vision of our society. At page 301 there is a table showing that the total expenditure on the programme was as follows: in 1974, it was £15,065; in 1975, £103,357; in 1976, £290,981; in 1977, £317,257; in 1978, £501,000; in 1979, £546,000; in 1980, £580,000. There is an asterisk correction that this may go up to £615,000.
The largest expenditure in any year has been just over £½ million. That is not all Irish money because the European Commission has contributed £829,489 out of that total expenditure in the period 1974 to 1980. A strikingly small amount of money is spent on funding the combat poverty programme.
It cannot be that it was because of lack of activities and a lack of energy because, in the first appendix, there is a list of the major activities and studies undertaken by the programme, and they are striking in a number of ways. They are striking for the geographical distribution of them — from Connemara to Cork, to the Midlands, north Leitrim, to the areas of agriculture, fishing, inner city, welfare programmes. There is a range and a striking degree of both comprehensiveness and initiative. They include projects which have both helped and involved the poorest sections in our community in a different way from the previous approach, in a non-paternalistic way, in a way which has created a sense of self-respect and an emphasis on self-help. It cannot be a lack of activities and a lack of energy in those activities. Nor can it be a lack of analysis and relevant comment. The analysis in this report is deeply relevant to the discussion on the Appropriation Bill because it is an analysis of our society.
I should like to refer briefly to what are described as the experiences arising out of the programme. Under the heading "Poverty — The Reality" there is a summary of the incidence of poverty which is fundamental to a debate on Government performance during the last year.
What comes through from the report and studies may be summarised as follows:
...the difficulties disadvantaged people face in trying to be part of and have a say in events that shape and affect their lives; — their helplessness or frustration in the face of official structures viz. of the Church, State, etc; — their poor self image; — their dependence on others to achieve their rights, e.g. politicians, social workers, clergy, teachers, etc. — the obstacles created by complexities of services and structures in areas such as education, housing, the legal system, planning etc. — the inadequacies of income maintenance services to provide a decent life for those worst off.
Having given in more detail a picture of these various subheadings, the report goes on to look at the implications arising out of the work of the programme. I can give a brief summary of the positive and negative implications at page 241 of the report.
The positive implications of the work may be summarised as follows: — given support by way of personnel, small financial aid, information training and co-operation, disadvantaged people can: (a) do things for themselves and their communities; (b) they can participate effectively; (c) they can come to terms with the complexities of official services and structures; (d) they can provide new insights into accepted practices.
The report goes on to the negative implications as follows:
The negative implications which have emerged are: participation by disadvantaged people does not happen overnight; challenges to traditional leadership and practices are not always welcome; bringing about change cannot totally be the responsibility of the poor.
Finally, I should like to refer to the main proposal made in this report of the combat poverty committee and this will lead me to my question to the Minister of State. A number of possible alternative proposals are stated in the report. At pages 266 and 267 the report argues the need to establish a national agency not, it is emphasised, to replace the need for a central Government social policy, or for existing Departments to review their policies and programmes in order to meet the needs of the poor, but that in addition to that a national agency is required. I should like to refer briefly to the reasons given for this because they are well summarised in the report. They are summarised at page 267 as follows:
What is therefore proposed is the establishment of an agency capable of operating at national, regional and local levels, which would develop and expand the work of the pilot schemes. Its responsibilities would include: (a) the refinement and promotion of new ways of dealing with the problem of poverty along the lines pioneered by the Committee; (b) the development of a national forum which would enable poor people to speak on their own behalf; (c) recommending to Government agencies and Departments particular actions in the fight against poverty and working with them in their implementation; (d) co-ordination and dissemination of relevant information to deprived groups regarding their rights and entitlements on a range of issues; this would require the provision of resources including library facilities and equipment; (e) provision of specialist resources, advice and assistance to such groups and others engaged in self-help activities, including priming grants and training; (f) promotion of issues research, both to help deprived groups tackle the problems facing them and contribute to evaluation of policy at national level; (g) provision of specialist services and in-service training for community workers; (h) publication of a journal or magazine for the promotion of awareness on poverty and related issues; (i) acting as a focus and liaison for various community and social work interests and other groups, Government Departments, and relevant statutory and voluntary institutions.
I put the entire list of the potential role of this national agency on the record because I believe it touches on the various kinds of activity which are urgently needed, and also because I would welcome very specific responses from the Minister as to what the attitude of the Government is to the work done by the combat poverty committee, to the approach of the combat poverty committee in their work and their various pilot projects, and what is to be the future.
The Minister for Health, Deputy Woods, said again and again the Government cannot take a final decision until they get the report and evaluation. I understand that the material in this is well known to the Government through the officials of the Departments who participated for some time. It is a matter of urgency that we get a very specific answer on the attitude. I have taken the liberty of referring in detail to that report because it is the conscience of this whole debate. We cannot evaluate the Government's performance unless we do it in the context of the most deprived sections of the community.
I should like to turn now to another specific area on which I would welcome a response from the Minister. It follows very easily the combat poverty committee because it is another type of activity which is concerned about families and people in a working class area, which provides a remarkable service to people in that area and yet which does not know if it will be able to continue next year. I am referring to the Coolock Community Law Centre. The position at the moment is that the solicitor and community law officer and administrator and other staff of the Coolock Community Law Centre do not know if they will be open in January 1981. They do not know what they should be saying at the moment to clients who come in and make appointments or seek to have cases set down in court for February, March or April of next year. I find this an appalling reflection on any appreciation of the importance of the Coolock Community Law Centre in that area and of the need to establish further community law centres on the same model. I should like to ask the Minister if he would in his reply state very specifically what the position is.
The Coolock Community Law Centre have been writing to the various Departments. They wrote to the Minister of State at the Department of Justice on 10 October and they got an acknowledgement saying it was a matter for the Minister himself. That is dated 21 October, and they have not had any more detailed response. They sent in a submission at the request of officials in the Department of Justice setting out in detail the work of the law centre, the case load, the informational role which it plays, the various local associations and organisations involved with the management committee. They summarised the financial needs of the Coolock Community Law Centre, including the need for a second solicitor because of the volume of new cases and the increased activity of the community law centre.
They wrote a letter to the Minister for Health on 10 October 1980, to which they have received no reply to date. They do not know what their position is and, at the same time, they have continued right up to the end of this year to provide the kind of community law service which is the essential way in which we as a State should provide access to law and to legal services. I suppose the role of the Coolock Community Law Centre is a challenge to the much less adequate approach in the Government's legal aid scheme which has established in the Dublin area the two law centres at Lower Gardiner Street and Aston Quay. These law centres are certainly staffed by very dedicated staff who do their best to provide the legal services to those who come to them. We know that the means test has worked out to be very stringent, to be a definite barrier to people having access to legal aid.
The law centres themselves are a very narrow perception of what the genuine role of a community law centre should be. That is best illustrated by referring to some of the surveys and analyses that have been done by the Coolock Community Law Centre for the Coolock area. I understand, in fact, that just this morning they have published another detailed survey of social welfare appeals in which they show the actual problems encountered by clients and by people who use the Coolock Community Law Centre in pursuing their social welfare appeals.
This is extremely valuable documentary evidence of the fact that this appeal structure, as I think most of us know, is not working very well. It is not adequate for those appealing against a refusal to give a social welfare entitlement, of whatever it may be — unemployment benefit, invalidity, or whatever — that the appeals structure is not working very well. This has been very well documented in this booklet, which gives the experience of a representative number of people over a particular time and, therefore, is perhaps the best evidence we could have of how the system is working.
A short time ago the Coolock Community Law Centre produced a report on barring orders and showed that the system whereby a barring order can be obtained under the Family Law (Maintenance of Spouses and Children) Act, 1976, is breaking down partly because of the reluctance and, indeed, the refusal of the Garda to enforce a barring order when it is breached, which leaves a wife and family in a very helpless position if the husband breaks the barring order, and leaves them with the possibly rather academic redress of taking out a second summons and looking for relief in that way.
It is only when you have bodies who can spend time examining the problems on the ground and who are close to the people whom they act for, and are under a board of management representative of the tenants' organisations and women's groups in that area, that you will get past the present barriers to access to law and to legal remedies. I would ask the Minister, first of all, to give a definite answer on whether the Government will be funding the Coolock Community Law Centre over the next year and, if possible, a specific indication of the amount of that funding. Will they fund the present staff, or will they allow the law centre to employ a second solicitor as is necessary because of the volume of work and the new cases which have come to the centre in the past year?
Being selective in the subjects which I am dealing with on this Appropriation Bill, as every Senator necessarily has to be, it is not difficult to move from the specific case of the Coolock Community Law Centre to the continuing absence of any commitment to law reform in important areas of Irish life, to important family law reform, and to law reform in the area of minority rights which is particularly relevant at a time when we appear to be making generous overtures, at least on paper, to the minority communities in Northern Ireland. I should like to relate this question of the absence of commitment to law reform to the political manoeuvres which are taking place at the moment. In the commentary so far and, in particular, in the political commentary here in the Republic, there has been an absence of scrutiny and an absence of concern about what appears to be a totally contradictory approach to the situation here in the 26 Counties over which we have jurisdiction and our apparent willingness to guarantee all kinds of protection in the context of an extension of that jurisdiction, or a federation, or confederation, or some sort of take-over of the territory of Northern Ireland.
I should like to refer to specific recent quotations from the Taoiseach which I think highlight this. Following the talks with Mrs. Thatcher which took place last May in London, the Taoiseach made a statement in the Dáil on 29 May in which he stated:
I am sometimes asked to put forward some kind of blueprint for a united Ireland. My reply is that in this context it is not any blueprint of mine that is important. What is important is the extent to which the Ireland I favour would have to be changed and altered to accommodate those whose traditions and attitudes are different from mine. This could only be ascertained in a meaningful way through patient dialogue and discussion.
I am prepared at any time to enter into discussion with representatives of any tradition in these islands. I say now, clearly, that the people who regard their tradition as being far removed from ours would be surprised at the length to which we would be prepared to go in such discussions to accommodate them, to give guarantees and undertakings, to protect and safeguard their interests and traditions.
Those of other traditions in the northern part of this island might well be surprised, might well even be suspicious of such overtures, because words have authenticity only when they reflect deeds and when they reflect an attitude. There is nothing in the approach of the Government towards their own minorities in their own jurisdiction at the moment which would give hope and encouragement to those of other traditions in Northern Ireland that things might be different. If they take the Taoiseach's words at another level, is it the case that these guarantees of safeguards and of recognition of minority tradition are to be bargaining counters in a context, and how much credibility can one put on using human rights and recognition of minorities as bargaining counters in this kind of political debate?
This is very relevant because of the reference in the recent communique issued in Dublin on December 8 to joint studies covering a range of issues including "citizenship rights". How exactly are these citizenship rights to be identified or to be studied? In what context are they to be studied? Will there be a study of the lack of protection of citizenship rights in the fullest sense at the moment in the Republic of Ireland? Is that to be part of the overall study? Are we going to be examined in some wider context as a country which has not so far recognised and protected minority rights? If so, will the experience of the past 12 months come into the picture — for example, the Government's current attitude on the question of amending the constitutional position on divorce?
If that is the case I do not think that we will come very well out of it, because, as the Minister will recall, in 1967 there was an all-party committee which unanimously recommended that there be a change in the total prohibition on divorce law under our Constitution. They recommended a formula which I would not think was the best way to deal with the situation but which effectively meant that the Constitution would be changed to allow those whose religion permitted divorce to obtain divorce within the Republic. But regardless of the precise formulation in 1967, the important thing is that 13 years ago an all-party committee unanimously recommended a change to permit divorce in the Republic. Yet in the past 12 months what have we seen? We have seen first, the Government's refusal to allow a First Reading to the Private Member's Bill proposed by Deputy Browne in June last and in October the defeat of a motion tabled by the Labour Party in the Dáil which proposed the establishment of an all-party committee to examine the ways in which the Constitution should be amended to permit divorce, a motion by which the Labour Party specifically tried in a constructive way to suggest a method of taking this issue out of the realms of being a political football in party politics so that there could be a broad-based approach which would enable this necessary reform.
What was the response? In the Dáil the Minister of State at the Department of Justice said and I shall quote the extract because it seems to me to be a blind refusal even to establish a committee to debate the matter: in other words that it is a definite step backwards since 1967 — as reported at column 1109 of the Official Report for 29 October, 1980:
The Government's position on this issue has been clearly stated on a number of occasions. The Taoiseach told the Dáil in April that the Government had no plans at present to promote legislation to amend the Constitution to remove the prohibition on the grant of a dissolution of marriage.
This view was reiterated by the Minister for Justice when Deputy Browne's Private Member's Bill was defeated on 3 June last. The Minister said that the Government's opposition to the motion is based on the conviction that in present circumstances the establishment of an all-party committee to deal with the question would be both deceptive and ambiguous.
I should be glad if the Minister would explain why the Government think that it would be deceptive and ambiguous at this stage to establish a committee with a view to examining the way in which the Constitution could be amended on the divorce issue. Why those words, "deceptive" and "ambiguous"? Could we perhaps have a more detailed assessment? Would it be deceptive to establish such a committee in the 26 Counties but not deceptive to offer it, as is clearly intended in the earlier passage that I quoted from the Taoiseach, to the Unionists in Northern Ireland? Who is being deceptive and ambiguous on the subject — the present Taoiseach and the Government? Would it be deceptive and ambiguous to discuss the matter in both Houses of the Oireachtas? This points graphically to a lack of willingness to give leadership, a lack of awareness of the human suffering, of the misery and of the oppression of not having any legal means to terminate a marriage in Ireland but having lots of Irish solutions to the Irish problem so favoured by our Taoiseach as a formula for introducing other legislation which I will come to briefly in a moment.
On the attitude towards the movement for divorce legislation, the opinion polls now reflect a majority in favour of a change in the divorce law. One of the recent polls showed 47 per cent in favour of a change in this law and 41 per cent against. There is an old political jibe which goes as follows: "There go the mob and I must follow for I am their leader." The Government now have the mob ahead of them. Therefore, would the Government not start to follow the mob and perhaps bring forward proposals in this area?
In so far as the Government have acted, their action has brought us into ridicule internationally and into a very serious situation locally in relation to the Health (Family Planning) Act, 1979 which was brought into effect on 1 November 1980. That Bill is not funny although there is great potential satrical subject matter there. It is deeply serious because it is denying access to information and advice to those who should have such access. It is creating a false premise on which the whole subject is being treated, the false premise that doctors should be involved in prescribing non-medical contraceptives, the false premise that doctors should be assessing what is or is not so called bona fide family planning and an approach which shows again a total unwillingness to face and indeed bring forward proposals to help the real situation in Ireland today. This is particularly shameful when there is at the same time a tendency to condemn in a very narrow context and out of hand the growth in the abortion rate and the number of Irish women going to cities in England for abortions. It seems to me that it must be inevitable that the Health (Family Planning) Act will have the effect of increasing the abortion rate. It will increase the number of unwanted pregnancies because it is narrowing in an artificial way access to family planning advice and services. That must in itself be a very serious matter. It is also preventing a proper health and family focus to the debate, because once again we have this incredible aspect to the Irish solution to the Irish problem, namely that the pill still remains outside this whole strange system and is not regarded as a contraceptive but as a cycle regulator and therefore does not come within the provisions of the Act. There is ample evidence down the years that the pill has been overprescribed in Ireland. This has presented severe health risks in certain areas, particularly among older women, especially if they have been on the pill for a number of years and without adequate supervision or because it is the only form of contraceptive that can be prescribed by the doctor in the area. The danger of the present Health (Family Planning) Act is that it lays a distorted emphasis on so-called natural forms of family planning. I am not against natural forms of family planning. They have a role to play for highly-motivated people and for people who have back-up support.
