May I raise a question, on a point of information, regarding the Committee of Selection? Is it out of order? Is it too late?
National Community Development Agency Bill, 1982: Committee Stage (Resumed) and Final Stages.
Question again proposed: "That section 4 stand part of the Bill."
That is out of order, Senator. I am afraid it is too late.
Is it out of order to record regret that one does not see the Joint Committee on Women's Rights on this list? At least that should be recorded.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 5.
I move amendment No. 4:
In page 4, after line 55, to insert the following new subsections:
"(2) At least three members of the Agency shall be drawn from communities or groups where there is a high degree of poverty and social deprivation, and who themselves are dependant for their income on statutory services.
(3) At least two members of the Agency shall be drawn from agencies working directly with communities and groups where there is a high degree of poverty and social deprivation."
A suggestion was made in the final report of the pilot scheme to combat poverty about an agency capable of operating at national, regional and local levels which would develop and expand the work of that pilot scheme. That final report listed a large number of suggested responsibilities for the proposed agency. To be fair to the Minister, almost all of those reponsibilities are either explicitly or implicitly contained in the functions of the agency. In my view the one that is most severely lacking is the development of a national forum which would enable poor people to speak on their own behalf. I emphasise the phrase "speaking on their own behalf." The functions of the agency are not something that one can read into any of the provisions of the Bill. I listened to the Minister on this with great interest because I feel very strongly about it. That is my first reason for proposing the amendment: to ensure that the agency understand well, carefully and in full the feelings, views and perspective of poor people and that at least three members of the agency shall be drawn from communities or groups where there is a high degree of poverty and social deprivation and who themselves are dependent for their incomes on statutory services. It is paternalism in the extreme to claim to want to help the poor if we are not prepared to ensure that the poor themselves are involved in that activity.
I said earlier on section 4 that I do not believe any of us who do not have to do so can understand the condition of a person who has to depend on statutory services for his or her income, one who must depend on the statutory services for the various other benefits and grants. In particular those who have to live on supplementary welfare are a category who really could talk to us all about the way we humiliate those who are most dependent and vulnerable.
I proposed my amendment for those two reasons: firstly, because it is an area in which it was recommended by the national committee on pilot schemes to combat poverty that there should be a forum for the poor, and, secondly, to ensure that the real views of the poor are articulated and that it is not my perception, not the Minister's perception or anybody else's perception. It is quite conceivable that what poor people want will be different from what both the Minister wants and from what I think they want. People's perceptions of their needs, what they want from society and what are their priorities may well be different from ours. They may run counter to our accepted wisdom; they may run counter to our conception of what are the priorities. It is not our right in any circumstances to dictate to the poor and say: "This is the way we will make your lot better. We know what is good for you. We want to do it and we will look after your interest. Do not worry, we will keep you. You come to us with your ideas and we as the National Community Development Agency will decide on your behalf." I believe the agency will not have the proper delicacy of touch, the proper sensitivity or the proper priority. There is no way they can if poor people are not strongly represented on that agency. Therefore I propose in the first part of my amendment, that at least three members of the agency shall be from communities or groups where there is a high degree of poverty and social deprivation and who themselves are dependent for their income on statutory services.
Secondly, I believe, in relation to those groups who are working with poor people and have worked in poor areas or with deprived groups like, for example, homeless people or single parents, at least two members of the agency should be drawn from those groups. The maximum number of the agency can be 15, so I am not talking about a majority. I am talking about five out of 15, which is one-third. That is not an unreasonable number. In addition the Minister will reserve to himself the right to dismiss any member of the agency if he thinks fit. The Bill will confer this power on the Minister, so I do not think there is anything to fear fundamentally from these representatives. It has been suggested to me what would happen if they ceased to be dependent on the statutory social services. If they cease to be dependent on social services, they cease to be eligible for membership and, therefore, they are replaced. I do not think that is an impossible task to get the whole collective wisdom of the Department of Health.
There is a fundamental issue of principle here that without guaranteed representatives of the poor on the committees and on the agency, who are by any category from poor areas or from poor groups and are dependent on the social services for their income, the agency will lack an important fundamental perspective on what their work, role and function should be. For the same reason, bodies and agencies which are involved in working with poverty and social deprivation must also be represented. It is not an excessive number. At least ten further members will be nominated by the Minitster as he sees fit. It is not unusual to specify categories who will be represented. The Youth Employment Agency Bill listed a large number of groups, employers, trade unions, youth organistations, all of whom would be entitled to a specific number of representatives on the agency. I am not even suggesting an elaborate and complicated election. I am simply saying when the Government, on the recommendation of the Minister, make their appointments, at least three should be from the groups and the income categories which I have suggested and at least two people from the agencies and the groups who work with the poor and the socially deprived.
I would like to support Senator Ryan's call for this type of membership of the agency. First, I do so on the basis of the case which Senator Ryan has made, that it is essential for the Minister to realise that there are people, as has been mentioned in this amendment, who have a specific commitment. The Minister should draw on, not alone their expertise in this field, but also their experience on the ground in this particular area. The Minister must be aware of my resentment of how he uses political reasons for appointing people to various boards, particularly health boards and now this agency. I have the gravest reservations if in the Minister's words to the media, he takes action along these lines, for political reasons to counterbalance what he considers an imbalance between Fine Gael and Labour as a Coalition and Fianna Fáil on a particular board. I resent that in the strongest possible terms on the basis that the reasons the Minister gave for it are not reasons at all. The Minister can check the record of the board where he had a recent political reason to do otherwise. The functions of this agency will in fact identify areas which could give the Minister the very same reasons for not reappointing people because in the broadest political terms they will identify areas that could be embarrassing to any Minister, not just the present Minister.
This is a useful amendment. It will ensure that there will be people who will have the courage from their experience and expertise to highlight particular areas and they will not be clouded by political motivation for or against a particular Minister but will see the problems. Perhaps the Minister will even concede the principle of Senator Ryan's amendment — we are still leaving him the right to nominate them — that if this agency is to function at all in the areas which are being spelled out in section 4, the people appointed must be people who know of the problem on the ground. This amendment should be conceded by the Minister.
With regard to the proposed amendment, I would like to say that on the last occasion on which I stood not so long ago to support an amendment of Senator Ryan's I was later persuaded by the Minister to vote on this side of the House. However, it would take a great deal of persuasion on this matter to persuade me to do likewise. I feel that Senator Ryan has got to the very kernel of the problem when he endeavours to show how powerless are the people whom we are trying to help in this Bill. It seems to me, altogether apart from the powerlessness, that the ability to deal with the problems will to a large extent be determined by our very acute awareness of them. No matter how well intentioned the members of the agency are, unless there is representation from those who are affected by social deprivation of one sort or another, it will be impossible to get across with feeling and genuine concern the real problems that exist.
There is considerable difficulty here because, if we follow through Senator Ryan's suggestion, the next question I would have to ask is how are we going to select the representatives whom he would like on the agency. Are we talking about selected or elected people? If we are talking about elected people we are talking about the restructuring of society. We might consider a community of the oppressed or a community of those receiving assistance but in some way we need to have — it has been discussed at length by the community groups in Northern Ireland — either a convention of community groups or an assembly place, a meeting house where community groups can meet and where these sorts of issues can be discussed and out of that meeting people can be elected to go on to semi-State or other statutory bodies.
There is a problem when we discuss how we will select the three people. Will they be the Minister's captives? Will they be the people's representatives? In the final analysis, the question really comes back down to what balance will be struck between having a society in which power is given by the authority of the people or in which those who have taken that power at the ballot box see it as a sort of inherent right to exercise their power over the people. There is a balance to be struck. I do not think one should go for one total extreme or the other.
Self-help was mentioned earlier by Senator Cranitch. The point he was emphasising is that we would love to see in Ireland a self-help rather than a hand-out society. In order to get to the point of self-help you must create social space for the people about whom we are talking. You must create a society whose participation is not only welcome but in which the machinery exists positively to encourage it. We must also consider how we will give, in the context of poverty and increasing unemployment, a much greater share in the whole area of natural resources and natural power. A right of equal access to the available employment will become increasingly important.
I support this amendment and even the Minister's debating power would be hard pressed to get me to do otherwise. How does the Minister see the representation working? Will it be selected? How will the process of selection take place? Is there some way in which we could restructure affairs for under-privileged people so that they would feel they had the right to elect their own representatives on to this agency?
I should like to introduce a new dimension. I am in full agreement with what the two previous speakers are trying to achieve and which women representing half the community have not yet achieved. It gives me great pleasure to be in a forum where at least some voices can be raised, hopefully before it is too late. The experience of women is essential to this agency. Never was it more essential on an agency or any board. We know from all the research throughout the world that the very real victims, the most vulnerable, numerous and powerless victims of all in our poverty trap, are women and their children. This is seen at every level, for instance, at the level of single parents. All the statistics show that the highest proportion of single parent families are headed by women with poor pay conditions, or no pay conditions and living on social welfare. They and their children represent the greatest mass in the poverty trap we all know exists.
I am not asking for any tokenism. The experience of women should be used. In voluntary organisations such as bodies set up for the alleviation of poverty, and in the caring community, the most active members are women. I am sure members of the House will agree that, when it comes to appointments to our State boards and bodies, women are lamentably absent, or there is a token woman and we are told to be satisfied with that. I am totally in agreement with this for the reasons I have given, and they are valid statistical reasons. I would not be asking for five out of 15. Fifty per cent of the appointees should be women.
I am in general agreement with the previous speaker with regard to the dimension of women on boards. In the last Seanad and in many fora around the country I have given vent to this particular aspiration. There is no doubt that, in hard practical terms — and this agency basically are a caring agency for the community — women in all aspects of life have a practical realisation of what it is to care for disadvantaged people.
I should like to return to a point which I made on the Second Stage of the Bill. The Minister was in the House at the time. When he is appointing the members of this agency — and here I can embrace Senator Barnes' point — he should consider women who have experience in the areas of both housing and education. I do not mean a bureaucratic person. I mean a person who has experience on the ground of the extent to which deprivation in housing has an effect on people's lives.
In this area women realise and can express the full extent of this deprivation. I have long held that of all the feminist issues which have been broached and shouted about, housing is the main issue on which women could have and should have a big input. Women spend a great deal of time in the home. Women bear the children, rear them and feed them. They have to put too many people into too small rooms. They have to put up with inadequate housing, overcrowded housing. Sometimes their children have to go to school in the morning with not enough food in their stomachs to last them through the day. They are the same children who are supposed to have equality of access to education. They have not, if they come from deprived houses or deprived areas.
When the Minister is appointing the members of the agency he should appoint people with real living experience of the deprivation of housing and the deprivation of education, and how they can affect members of our society. I spoke here at some length a week or two ago about the Rutland Street experiment and said I was anxious to see the outcome of this experiment. It is a pre-school activity. Parents, and particularly mothers, went with their young children to a pre-school and shared with them the traumas, the tribulations and the joys of such schooling and particularly as it affected deprived areas.
With regard to Senator Ryan's point on the appointment of persons from voluntary groups dealing with deprived areas and deprived people, the points I have made embrace that. The appointment of persons from socially deprived areas would be very difficult to implement. I could not actively support that proposal. In principle and in theory it sounds right and would be right, but not in practice. The points I have made with regard to education and environment embrace those two areas as well.
I should like to thank Senators for their contributions on amendment No. 4. It is not my intention in the Bill to provide for representation for any particular groups or bodies. It is important that the Minister should be free to call on the people he considers best able to contribute to the work of the agency. However, on the amendment, I can assure Senator Ryan that when I am appointing the members of the agency I will draw on representatives of the client groups, the principal element he is concerned about. Similarly I will draw on the relevant agencies working directly with these under-privileged groups when I am making these appointments. This has always been my intention.
Senator Robb asked if this amendment were accepted what basis would one use for it. The basis proposed is that the Minister will select the people. There is no other arrangement. It just says that at least three members should be drawn from the communities or groups where there is a high degree of poverty and social deprivation and who themselves are dependent for their income on statutory services. I said in my reply to Senator Ryan that I will certainly do this. I will draw on representatives of what are called client groups. There are difficulties because, as Senator Ryan said, you may have a case where someone is unemployed, what about those who are on next week or the week after. If you look for someone who has been unemployed for a very long time, you are picking a very selected group within the unemployed group, so where do you select them? If you take someone who is unemployed, what about those tho are on long-term invalidity pension or disability? What understanding will they have of old age pensioners' problems? There are short-term and long-term benefits. Senator Ryan recognises the difficulty there.
Senator Robb met this point by saying that there is a need for an infrastructure which leads to this if you are going to have that kind of arrangement and some means of having a convention of community groups. The National Social Service Board tried to bring this agency up to this level. I have been attempting to get the National Social Service Board and the Federation of Voluntary Groups to work together as closely as possible. I explained that the National Social Services Board are going through a process of development. The first step was to go from the National Social Service Council, which had a very loose and a more limited brief, to the National Social Service Board, which had a tighter board, and members were selected from different areas of activity to serve on that board. In May and June 1981 we set up the National Social Service Board. We are now talking about subsuming that board. That has implications of course. Senator B. Ryan is also concerned about membership of the National Social Service Board. That question must be considered too.
There is a need for a convention of community groups and this is the kind of thing we would like to see. I have been keen to bring the community aspect into this Bill so that the activities, energy and capacity of these groups would be brought into the national scene. I hope the agency will promote that goal and that the community groups will want to be involved in the agency.
I can see the desirability of the general development and infrastructural development which Senator Robb referred to and I will do anything I can to encourage that development but that infrastructure must be developed if we are to nominate people to this board. This is something which can be looked at further along the line. At this stage the best arrangement would be to ensure that some members are appointed from these areas and I will undertake to draw on representatives from the client groups in appointing members of the agency.
We have had different representations made both in the Dáil and the Seanad about who should represent whom in the agency. We had a council with 22 or 23 members. One of the first things I did was to reduce this to ten. Now someone tells me its membership has been increased to 12, because we brought in two staff members. The staff wanted to be involved. They, as well as Senator Ryan, are very supportive of the trade unions and that is why the membership was increased from ten to 12. We have so many groups we cannot fit them all in. Senator Barnes laid particular stress on the number of women who should be involved and this is one of the criteria. If the Senator wishes, I will show her a list of the boards with which I have been involved and she will see the number of women who have been appointed to those boards. We take great pains to find women who are actively involved but there are difficulties sometimes, for example when you set up a board like Comhairle na nOspidéal — not many consultants are women. I am sure Senators can appreciate that.
If I may interrupt, when talking about choosing from poverty groups the Minister will have no problem finding women who are interested in this area.
I appreciate that, but the staff want to be involved on the board. The client groups and the representatives of the clients, the voluntary organisations, the regions, the deprived communities, various kinds of communities such as the aged and the professionals, will want to be involved on the board, as will people with experience in housing, education and other relevant areas. For instance, the members of the National Social Service Board, as they stand at the moment, wish to be represented. We are talking about a very limited number of people because we are not going for a big broadly representative board we are trying to get a fairly dynamic board which will make things happen and which will obviously have some management experience. No matter how much well-wishing and good will is built into a board if there is no management ability there is a fair likelihood the board will not achieve their objectives. Therefore all these groups have to be represented.
I mentioned the National Social Service Board earlier but I was talking about the National Rehabilitation Board. I reduced the membership on that board from 22 to 12. In this case we are going for a smaller board to ensure that they will be effective in management terms. There will be a great deal of scope for that board to get involved in committees, sub-committees and in a variety of other ways.
I will give Senator B. Ryan an undertaking to draw on representatives of client groups.
I have to confess I am not satisfied. The representatives of client groups would not necessarily be people who are dependent on statutory social services. I know it would be difficult for the Minister to name groups, but I am not sure what the term "client groups" means in any specific detail, and I would be grateful if the Minister can make it clearer. Secondly, I believe it is important that the representation I am talking about should be a substantial proportion of the membership of the agency — it should not be just a token one person. The Minister is facing a dilemma and I wish I was facing that sort of dilemma because I would be able to do something about it. Unfortunately, I am only a back bench member of the Seanad and I have to leave it to the Minister to resolve his dilemma.
I would like the Minister to specify in greater detail what he means by "representatives of client groups", and I would like some indication of the numbers involved, because I am not interested in one token person. There has to be a substantial number of people to represent a substantial, coherent, vigorous voice in the agency.
Do I take it from the Minister's response that he accepts in principle the spirit behind this amendment and that if the section remains as it is he will do as far as possible what this amendment asks? I gathered from his response that that was his commitment to the groups mentioned by Senator B. Ryan and that women would be represented in this agency.
As Senator Barnes said, there is no problem getting women involved in an area like this although in some areas there may be a difficulty, and later I will show Senator Barnes some of the committees I have established and the number of women involved.
Yes, I accept the principle. There is no question in relation to this area of clients. Senator Ryan has not clearly defined the clients he is talking about. We could pick somebody from the register of unemployed, but, as I said, there are many difficulties there. Perhaps what is needed first is more structural development. Tenants' associations, the representatives of the travelling people and various groups like that would be "client groups". I know Senator Ryan is involved with the Simon Community and these are the sort of people we would think normally of having involved, but there are those who frown on that because they say these are brokers rather than ultimate clients. There is a difficulty when we get to that level and when we are talking about the national scene. We need to have both on the rural and the urban level, an infrastructure from which one can draw appropriate representation otherwise one can only in principle agree to take representatives from these client groups. I am quite happy to take representatives who can be seen fairly to represent the groups. If they can find people who reasonably represent the groups we have in mind I will accept that. In principle I accept what Senator Ryan has said.
The Minister mentioned the Simon Community. I want to make it clear that I have been involved with the Simon Community for ten years but I still do not understand what it is like to be homeless. Nobody from the Simon Community can represent the homeless properly; the homeless must do that themselves. If the Minister means by a representative of a client group somebody who is in intimate contact with the client group, I do not see that it would be such a terrible thing to have in the agency somebody who was active in one of the unemployment action groups around the country.
The Minister has considerable powers in this Bill to pick people. I envy him his dilemma. I wish I was in the position to have that kind of dilemma. I do not accept that somebody who is involved even in face-to-face work in a group like the Simon Community really knows what it is like to be homeless. I do not think somebody who is assisting an unemployed action group who is employed himself really knows what it is like to be the client of the Department of Social Welfare in a labour exchange. I have to keep saying this over and over again. The people who have to deal on a day-to-day basis with the services should be the representatives, not any agency, however well-intentioned or close to them, who speaks on their behalf.
I find myself in some difficulty about this amendment. In many ways it crystallises the problem we are dealing with in relation to this Bill. In the last analysis if the problem of social deprivation and poverty is to be grappled with, it is going to be grappled with by way of administrative decisions. That is the root political fact. In the debate on the various sections we come up against the problem of the extent of the will and the determination to make the administrative decisions to grapple with the problem and also to what extent we have to make an act of faith in the future.
As I see it, the whole Bill falls if the Minister has not got that will and the courage to go through with it. Irrespective of the number of amendments and the changes which may be made, in the last analysis it depends on that administrative commitment to deliver, not just in terms of the Bill itself but in terms of the political decisions which are required to get to grips with the whole problem of social deprivation. There are many things I would like to see included but at the end of the day someone in a ministerial chair has to make the ministerial decisions which will provide the resources to eliminate poverty and help to prevent it in the future. It is in the light of that view — I was going to call it the doctor's dilemma, but it is the dilemma the doctor has given us — that I look at this amendment.
I have tremendous sympathy with the amendment and I could go along with it. I also recognise that the Minister has given an assurance on the matter. If we did not get that assurance and if it is not put into effect, then the whole structure of this Bill will crumble. In the last analysis, we get back to that root central point. I welcome the Minister's assurance that he will try to include the people referred to by Senator Ryan. I have a problem with this because if this type of amendment were to be added to the Bill I could think of other types of amendments where one could make an equally valid case for their inclusion but that is not to say that there is any invalidity in the amendment.
While we must make an act of faith in the will of the Government and the Minister concerned to deal with the problems of social deprivation, we have no control over the decisions that are going to be taken in the future and I have found the debate very, very difficult from that point of view. However, I have no hesitation in stating that I believe the Minister has got that will and courage to deal with the problem. In the light of that, I am satisfied with his assurance that he will make provision for not only the points made by Senator Ryan but also the points made by Senators Barnes and O'Rourke.
Lest the House should think that Senator Mallon and I are in cahoots, I have to express some variance with the view he has just elaborated. There is a doctor's dilemma. I had the experience of parents in desperation coming to my home four years ago whose boy, one of the most intelligent youngsters in Northern Ireland at GCE level and first year at University, had taken up drugs. For about five years he was in and out of intensive care units, was found in England, was picked up by the police and eventually made the great move forward of three months in an institution where he was without drugs. He came back into the community and his parents did not know what to do with him. As a doctor I knew nothing about the drug problem. The only way I could deal with that problem was to learn about it and the only way I could learn about it was to take that boy into our home and learn about it.
Therefore, I feel that we cannot rely on acts of faith. I would be the first to accept the good faith of the Minister in this respect, particularly having heard him today with great patience and articulation elaborating on his plans for the future. I have no doubt about his good faith in this matter but if we rely on acts of faith and if we do not do sufficient to bring about better understanding, then we will still be debating this problem five or ten years from now, again with good faith. There are plenty of people in Ireland who have good faith and who have abiding good intentions but all of us lack great understanding.
I have mentioned one case in point and the tragedy is that that man is no longer with us. There was no way in which he was going to be helped by our profession and the greatest criticism and the greatest frustration he had was with the medical profession. When he faced them, the so-called experts, they shied away from the problem because they did not know how to cope with it. In spite of their good intentions and their high motivation they were lacking in understanding and feeling. It is only by involving the people concerned that we can actually go forward in a constructive climate with a new debate and mobilise the goodwill which we have heard today from both sides of this House, and by engaging the people with the problem so that we can better understand it.
I have not got any information from the Minister on numbers. Are we going to have one representative of client groups and one representative of agencies? That would not be satisfactory. If the Minister can tell me he envisages there being more than one in each case I would be feeling reasonably well disposed, but one in each case I would regard as "tokenism".
I was very interested in what Senators Robb and Mallon had to say. They were very relevant contributions to the debate. Senator Mallon pointed out the need for commitment on the part of the Minister and the board. If we do not have a board who will have that commitment we will not get anywhere. As stated by Senator Mallon, a valid case could be made for various groups in the same respect. One point struck me about Senator Robb's view. Senator Robb took the boy into his home to try to meet this situation. In the example he gave he was open to the problem which existed. He did not suggest that the boy in question should go on the board but he suggested that there should be somebody there in the medical profession who is open to this problem. There are such people here. In relation to travellers, I could introduce the Senator to a man who is doing a job that nobody talks about and he does not want anybody to talk about it because as soon as they would start talking about it they would kill the work being done. I could do the same in other areas. They are not the people of the media; they are like those in the example given by the Senator. I agree that that is the concept we want but the problem is which way do we get at it.
Senator Robb spoke about the way the agency should work and the kind of people who should be on the agency. In relation to the representatives of the client groups and the clients, this is not well worked out as yet. Naturally, I have a great respect for the Simon Community and the people who work with that organisation. I know that Senator Ryan, who works with the Simon Community, has the practical management ability to understand much of what goes on within that area. If we had somebody like the Senator on the agency — we have precluded him in the Bill and we did not do that for any nasty reason — he would be open to the lines of communication which should be established, the type of committees that should be established with the agency. That could be an initial development in that area. It is a problem for me because if these organisations who are doing so much work are not represented — and represented very broadly — there is a lack in the understanding and sensitivity of the body. I would be thinking of having more than one representative of both these groups. Obviously, we also would have a good number of women involved on the board and I accept that. It should be possible to get people with that background. Most of the homeless people who go to the Simon Community may be men but that will not meet Senator Barnes' point of view because most of those she was referring to are unmarried mothers, single women, deserted wives and other categories. No matter which way I go I will have problems in constructing a board.
The function of the board, ultimately, will depend on the management ability of the people running that board. Members commented today about our deficiency in the past and said we have not succeeded the way we should have. We should ask ourselves why we have not succeeded. We have not built into those bodies the kind of management that exists in industry or the IDA. That is the reason I got Michael Killeen to go on to the Council for the Aged. Straight away everybody involved said: "That is wonderful, they are organised, they know the way they are going, they are involved, there is participation." Those matters are all connected with management. People like that are needed if we are to get anywhere. If we want to look back in the future at this agency and say that it was effective, it tackled the problems, it presented reports to the Government that made the case clearly and unequivocally, then we must have people who are not just involved but who also have management ability and are able to stand up nationally in management.
Senator Ryan raised the question of the very strong lobbies. That was a good point because in those areas where there is the management input and experience, very sophisticated lobbies who deliver their message. I do not blame them for doing it; it is their job. What has been lacking in organisations like this before is the input of similar management-type people who are able to put the message in the way it will have impact and make its impression. They should be able to develop an organisation and control staff in such a way that they will give of their best to the organisation. The Senator should leave it to me to do my best with this.
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
The Chair would like to point out to speakers that they ought to address their remarks to the Chair.
Am I out of order?
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
The Senator is not out of order but there has been a great amount of repetition on this amendment.
I am grateful to the Chair for his indulgence and I apologise if I was not addressing the Chair. I got carried away. I am grateful to the Minister for the assurances he has given. I do not think I could ask for any more. Even if the amendment was accepted and the Minister chose to be awkward, he could put people in who would not be the people I have in mind. When I mentioned members of agencies I was not trying to put in a plug for my own favourite voluntary group. In view of the assurance the Minister has given, I wish to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Section 5 agreed to.
SECTION 6.
Question proposed: "That section 6 stand part of the Bill."
Subsection (5) carries the usual terminology for the setting up of such a board. It is usually acceptable that members do not receive any remuneration for acting as members of an agency. However, because of the special situation of some people who would be members of the board hopefully after the long discussion we had with the Minister regarding the personnel we should be careful about accepting the usual terminology. It might restrict later the payment of some kind of an allowance or remuneration to allow very disadvantaged people to avail of membership of the board. We are talking about disadvantaged people who do not have any money. This should be looked at to give some flexibility in that area.
I should like to assure the Senator, and the House, that there is provision to cover that kind of situation. There is provision to pay travelling and subsistence allowances at rates and in kinds that may be appropriate to the circumstances. Under that heading one could cover a situation where there are unusual costs.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 7.
Question proposed: "That section 7 stand part of the Bill."
This is the section to which reference was made during the debate on section 4 when I tried to deal with the possibility of the agency properly being able to perform their functions. As Senator Mallon had said, I said that there must be a real commitment on the part of the Minister to match the demands that will be made in the normal course by the agency for the type of money given to statutory bodies with whom the agency will have close working liaison and consultations when areas of social deprivation will have been identified. Our experience in relation to such bodies has been that there has not been sufficient commitment by the Minister to ensure that statutory bodies like health boards will be able to help the community. This is not a political statement, Minister, because I made the very same statement to your predecessor who was on my side of the House, and to yourself when you previously filled this office. We pointed out to you that unless the community welfare nursing service of the health boards were given financial commitment and guarantees in respect of staffing asked for we could not deliver the kind of care to underprivileged people that the agency will be bound to identify, and therefore we will have a tremendous dilemma among the statutory bodies because your budget has been totally inadequate. I am saying that in all fairness to you——
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
There has been too much use of the word "you". There is the royal prerogative "we", but the Minister is only answerable as Minister and you should not treat him as a person, as "you". The Chair would appreciate it if you would give him his official title right through. If you would speak through the Chair we would get around that. The Chair has an obligation all round to protect personalities involved.
I will try to be as specific as I can in relation to the Minister, who is a person, a person at present responsible for the administration of public funds on behalf of the Government through a health board on which I am a person and a member. I am trying to make the point that the functions of this agency will be funded through the provisions of section 7 and I am reminding the Minister, through the Chair, that he as a Minister has a responsibility the nature of which we have pointed out to him in the past. We have identified areas in which there is a lack of capital and of commitment to provide capital and staff — areas which will be isolated by the agency. Therefore, a commitment by the Minister will be of vital importance to the agency which the Minister, as a person, is trying to legislate for here today.
I have emphasised the areas of public health nursing, home help and social services, and the discrepancies in my area in these services in which there have been vacancies on staffs. If we are to fulfill our commitment to people in need, a need which has been identified by voluntary groups and by the poverty agency established not long ago, we should have provision in section 7. Otherwise, the existence of the agency will be nonsensical because continuing to identify pockets of need without doing something specifically about them makes this just a whitewashing effort.
A practical commitment to needy communities will first of all keep people out of hospitals, welfare homes, day centres, psychiatric and other State institutions. That can be done only if a proper community service is made available, properly funded and staffed. That would lessen the tremendous demands we make on the Minister in his capacity as disburser of moneys for the health services. The greatest demands are being made in respect of hospitalisation, particularly for specialised hospital treatment. The demands for institutional treatment are so great that we must look to some other source which would help to keep that demand down.
It is only through the community welfare services that this can be done. The sum of £2 million provided for this agency will not do that. The Minister must also guarantee finances for other bodies when the problem has been identified. I have been a member of a health board for ten years and I have yet to see such a commitment. I agree there have been tremendous improvements. Demand has increased from £8 million to £80 million in a few years, mostly created by the institutional needs of health care. Many people can survive in the community with a good deal of self-help if we have a reversal of the trend by doctors to dispatch them to hospitals simply because there are not enough public health nurses to look after them. Families and homes have been subjected to a lot of stress because of this and I ask the Minister for this special commitment.
Within the resources available, I am committed to providing as much as can be provided for this agency. I am sorry Senator Ferris was not here earlier when I discussed this matter with Senator B. Ryan. Senator Ryan spoke of the global situation, the need to keep things outside this agency. Senators Bolger and Barnes referred to this as well. In recent years there has been a genuine effort to increase the level of payments to social welfare beneficiaries. I gave the figures to Senator Ryan, taking a single old age contributory pensioner's benefit as a percentage of average industrial wages. It was 24.8 per cent in 1979, 28 per cent in 1980, then 29.3 per cent and later 33 per cent. I agree it is important to think of that side, but from the point of view of the health services I have given figures to show a clear policy to develop community based services.
Senator Ferris is correct that this part of community care is particularly important, that properly developed it would take the strain from particularly expensive institutional services. However, I hope the Senator is not misunderstanding the position. The provision of £2 million to the agency at the outset represents a substantial effort when one considers other efforts being made. This is an increase on the sum provided for recently in the Estimate, which was only £250,000.
The overall health board side was cut back very severely, by £48 million, at the beginning of this year in the Estimate and in terms of jobs that meant that 2,500 staff were going out of the service in the health boards and hospitals. When I became Minister I managed to get £28 million back to offset the worst effects of this. It is a matter of record now that the very areas that I emphasised to the health boards specifically must be maintained and developed were the communitybased services, notwithstanding our other difficulties particularly, as the Senator mentioned, the question of the home helps and other care of that nature.
I would also point out that the increase in the last three or four years in staff in the health services has been 7,700 and a proportion of that was in the community-based services. I appreciate that the area that was most ready to absorb those increases was, of course, the hospital area. I know the number of public health nurses has increased to a target but with further development of communities that is inadequate and there is a need to increase it further. I would like to assure the Senator of my commitment in that respect within the resources which I can manage to avail of.
Question put and agreed to.
Sections 8 to 10, inclusive, agreed to.
SECTION 11.
I move amendment No. 5:
In subsection (1), page 7, lines 5 to 7, to delete "(subject to the approval of the Minister, given with the consent of the Minister for Finance, as to the number and kind of such employees)".
An Leas-Chathaoirleach
Amendment No. 6 is consequential on amendment No. 5. Both should be discussed together.
While I understand and accept that in the creation of any agency in a Department the Minister would wish to have some control over the numbers in terms of persons employed by that agency and that therefore putting in a restriction of some sort is normal enough, I worry about it a little in this instance because I am aware of past experience where proposals to hire staff in the general area of anti-poverty programmes that the agency concerned ran into difficulties because the Minister at the time did not agree with the programme that the agency at that time wished to carry out. Therefore, because there was such a restriction he was able to prevent a programme of this kind going ahead and to prevent the hiring of staff. I would be interested if the Minister would elaborate on how he sees those words in brackets applying in practice. Ideally the agency should have a lot of freedom to design its own programmes. It has got that but it should also have freedom to hire staff appropriate to those programmes. If the agency is prevented from hiring particular kinds of staff it can effectively lead to the non-implementation of programmes. I would be interested to hear the Minister's interpretation of this and how he would envisage it being administered by the Minister for Social Welfare.
First, the provision in the Bill is the standard for all the bodies. As Senator O'Mahony knows, this is something which is insisted on by the Department of Finance in any event. So, I cannot accept the amendment which removes completely any control by the Minister of the number and types of staff the agency should employ. Perhaps Senator O'Mahony's fears will be eased by the fact that the staff of the NSSB will be absorbed into the body, so they will be there for a start. Second, I would visualise that the staff required essentially would be taken on early on and that they would be there from that time on. In other words there would be a basic staff and the bulk of the work would be contracted out subsequently and the agency would have their own facilities to contract for research.
I outlined during the Second Stage debate in the Dáil that it is my intention that the staff in the agency should be kept to an absolute minimum and that it should avail of the expertise that is available throughout the country when necessary rather than set up a superstructure which would be removed from the problems on the ground — and we are getting back to the debate we had here earlier in relation to involvement of people outside.
The practical application of it would, in effect, be that it would be the same as all other bodies in similar situations where this measure applies. But in practical terms the bulk of the staff would be taken on in the early stages building up a team within the organisation. By and large the numbers of staff required after that would be relatively small and I would see no difficulty in getting sanction for small additional numbers.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment No. 6 not moved.
Section 11 agreed to.
Section 12 to 16, inclusive, agreed to.
SECTION 17.
I move amendment No. 7:
To delete subsection (2), page 9, lines 4 to 6.
The first part of section 17 is fine. It provides that a person shall not, without the consent of the agency, disclose any information obtained by him while performing duties as a member. But it is a classic sledgehammer-to-crack-a-nut situation to have a penalty not exceeding £500. I have been advised by people who have done a study that this section is almost unprecedented in bodies of this nature and in State agencies generally, and that the only comparison that could be made is with the National Board for Science and Technology, and even there the secrecy regulations are a good deal more constrained and more circumspect than that. That is why I proposed the amendment. Quite obviously an agency should be able to determine discipline among those whom it employs. That is a normal part of the functions of any body which has a managerial function in employing staff. Obviously unauthorised disclosures of information would be dealt with within the normal procedures of any employer dealing with an employee. But to go on to a totally new tack and totally new plane and create an offence is being totally ridiculous and suggests, somewhere or other, an obsession with secrecy in this particular area which does not bode too well for the operations of the agency. I do not understand why an offence should be created with a penalty not exceeding £500. I cannot understand it. I would like the Minister to explain on what precedent this section is based and why he thinks it is necessary.
I support the amendment. Indeed, I am opposed to the whole section. Senator Ryan is right in saying that the whole section is unnecessary. It confirms my concept of what this agency is about. It has not very much to do with anti-poverty campaigns because they by their nature require access to information and require openness and a cross-flow of information from employees within an agency to people outside on an on-going basis. Subsection (1) is extremely restrictive. It seems to me as an non-lawyer that it almost precludes the possibility of any kind of on-going dialogue between community employees without the consent of the agency.
My principal problem with this section is that it seems to indicate a restrictive concept of what the agency should be about. It is imposing an unnecessary additional control and I support the amendment proposed.
I agree with the previous speakers. I have participated over the past five years as a member of an agency with statutory powers and there was no such clause, nor was it ever deemed that there should be because the commitment and the responsibility both of the agency members and staff were such that they knew it would be highly damaging to the work they did if they made an irresponsible statement or, much more serious, actually damaged either the reputation or the confidence of any person who came to them. It raises a question about the perception of this agency as against other agencies which have been set up.
Earlier in the debate the Senators were pressing me to make this a vital central national body which would have access to the information in the Departments and would be seen as a very strong organ of State. I was criticised for the fact that they might not be putting their information into the present national plan centre. It think it was Senator Harte who mentioned that aspect. Obviously if it is under way in time they can put their information into the national plan which is being prepared currently; if not, they will not be there in time to have much influence on the situation. If we want it to be a central body and to have access to the information which is available within various Departments where they are relevant, then obviously the members will have to be subject to the same code of conduct as applies to other people who handle that kind of information. If not, then they cannot operate in that way.
The purpose of the section is to facilitate rather than hinder the work of the agency. An important part of the work of the agency will be concerned with advising on the development of Government policy and providing critical analyses of existing State services. If the members and staff of the agency are to be given access to sensitive information, it is necessary that they should be subject to the normal requirements of confidentiality. If the subsection referred to by the Senator were to be removed, then there would be no penalty for disclosure of information and therefore no point in subsection (1) which prohibits such disclosure. I would point out that the saver clause at section 17(3) clearly provides that the agency's day-to-day work will not be restricted in any way.
I would, therefore, recommend that the section stand as it is and it is for these very reasons that I believe this agency will be important in the whole State setup. They should have free access to the information which is available on a confidential basis within Departments.
The Minister has something of a point. He laboured at great length and with some conviction — and he swayed me on a couple of issues — the role of the parliamentary draftsman in this matter. I believe it would have been possible with proper sensitivity to have drafted a clause which would ensure that confidential information obtained from bodies and State agencies could be covered in some way without the "catch all" we have here. I cannot accept that if the subsection were deleted it would be unworkable. I would have thought that any agency employing staff would be able to take appropriate disciplinary action where the staff do not observe the codes, regulations and the requirements of their employer. Therefore if we say that a person shall not do something without the consent of the agency and the person commits that act, quite obviously that person is in breach of his or her contract with the agency and can be dealt with in the appropriate fashion, which would probably be a lot more severe than a fine of even £500 as he or she would probably lose a job.
It is the first time I take real issue with the Minister on this Bill. Maybe it is because we are both getting a bit tired but for the first time since we started I find the Minister's reply to be less than helpful. It is nonsense to say that if my amendment were carried the section would be meaningless. It would mean exactly what the first section says, that a person in breach of his contract with the agency would be subject to disciplinary action. Under the normal principles of management if a person is in breach of confidence — and this is simply reiterating that fact in legislative form — then that person would be subject to disciplinary action.
There is no restriction on the reports of the agency or to the agency. Even if someone feels there is something which needs to be reported to the Minister in relation to the agency's activities or something within it, that is covered also in section 17(3) or through reports which are involved. It is purely a question of observing the normal arrangements of confidentiality in relation to the information which is made available. If that did not exist it would be hard to see how the central agencies would co-operate.
Question put: "That the words proposed to be deleted stand".
The Committee divided: Tá, 22; Níl, 19.
Tá
- Brennan, Paudge.
- Cassidy, Donie.
- Conway, Seán.
- Cranitch, Mícheál.
- de Brún, Séamus.
- Fallon, Seán.
- Fitzgerald, Tom.
- Herbert, Tony.
- Hussey, Thomas.
- Killilea, Mark.
- Lanigan, Mick.
- Larkin, James.
- Mallon Séamus.
- Mara, Patrick J.
- Mullooly, Brian.
- Nolan, Matthew J.
- O'Keeffe, Edmond.
- O'Rourke, Mary.
- O'Toole, Martin J.
- Ryan, Eoin.
- Ryan, William.
- Smith, Michael.
Níl
- Barnes, Monica.
- Belton, Luke.
- Bolger, Deirdre.
- Bulbulia, Katharine.
- Byrne, Toddie.
- Daly, Jack.
- Dowling, Dick.
- Durkan, Bernard J.
- Ferris, Michael.
- Harte, John.
- Hourigan, Richard V.
- Howard, Michael.
- McDonald, Charlie.
- O'Connell, Maurice.
- O'Mahony, Flor.
- Reynolds, Pat Joe.
- Robb, John D. A.
- Ross, Shane P. N.
- Ryan, Brendan.
Tellers: Tá, Senators W. Ryan and Cranitch; Níl, Senators B. Ryan and Harte.
Question declared carried.
Amendment declared lost.
Section 17 agreed to.
Sections 18 to 22, inclusive, agreed to.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported without amendment.
Agreed to take remaining Stages today.
Bill received for final consideration and passed.