To pursue the problem at local community level, the Minister did allude in his speech to the need for bringing together the voluntary and statutory agencies. I would endorse that very fully indeed.
With regard to that need, let me give one example. I can recollect shortly after moving from Belfast to north Antrim that there was a great problem with regard to the chronically ill, not those designated as geriatrics who can be rehabilitated by definition, but people who could not after medical assessment expect to be rehabilitated to return to their own homes. These people were being nursed in a Nissen hut and this hut caused a great deal of trouble. Everyone seemed to focus on the Nissen hut rather than on the problems of the two nurses trying to look after 20 chronically ill patients who were unable to move themselves and who were catheterised and have very little control over their own systems. I remember a minister of religion coming to see me and he was most outraged that this was occurring in a hospital to which I was attached. I said there was far too much focus on the building and not anything like enough focus on the need to mobilise the community to deal with the problem. I said "If you were to go back to all the churches in your town and get them all to come together and to provide one volunteer from the lot to attend that Nissen hut nightly, then if you were to go around all the tenants' associations and community groups and ask for a volunteer from the lot to come to that Nissen hut nightly, then if you were to go to the families of those people in the Nissen hut and to ask them to come together to provide one volunteer each night, each person would be on a rota working perhaps for one night in 60 or perhaps one night in every two or three years, if all the resources available to the community were mobilised, and you would have increased the staff four-fold." The problem is only beginning at that point, because as soon as volunteers arrive at the gate of that hospital the first thing you will find is members of my profession and the nursing profession and perhaps even the legal profession standing aghast that people who are not certified are going to do a job which has traditionally been done by those who are certificated.
There are all sorts of novel ways in which we could start to deal with the problem and to increase the potential of our hidden economy. The Minister was coming close to that. It is interesting that the title of this Bill is the National Social Services Board Bill. For a number of years I have felt that there is a great need in Ireland for national social service, not as a means of trying to get cheap labour, not as a means of denying other people employment, but as a means of raising awareness among the school-leavers of the great social problems which confront us and which have been alluded to in the Minister's speech this afternoon. A period of national social service, where the period was obligatory but where the options were entirely voluntary, could provide an enormous increase of awareness of the problems.
We have children from Northern Ireland going to Holland and America. Would it not be much better if we were to organise children to move in the North-South direction, children to move across the sectarian divide, rural youngsters to work in urban settings or urban youngsters in rural settings? You could have service in the area of rehabilitation, the rehabilitation of those who have had problems with drugs, alcohol, problems of mental health. There are all sorts of imaginative ways in which we could mobilise our youth and make them more aware. In time they would come in the adaptable way to respond to need and would be much more aware than their predecessors have been and they would, because of their awareness, break down the class barriers which are alluded in this document and would promote a much more healthy new Ireland for the future.
I mentioned the word "health" on a number of occasions, and in his speech the Minister said:
Because the realities of poverty and inequality are so inextricably linked into the structures and effects of the social welfare system and its interaction with policies in areas such as taxation, health, education and housing I considered it appropriate to seek the advice——
Let us just look at these things. In the context of the problems we now face, is our education system about development? Is it about integration of the person in the community? Is it about leading out, education — I lead out, educo— or is it indication which is something which leads us in, refines talents, differentiates talent? It is about health and wholeness or is it about the super-refinement of a small area or our talents? We need to look at education.
Let us look at health. The so-called health professions are at present terribly obsessed with curing disease. They pay lip service to its prevention but they have barely started to consider the very radical political implications of promoting health. When you talk about promoting health, particularly at community level, you are talking about the system of education that exists, the opportunity that exists locally. It is much harder to face these problems locally and to bring people together to have a debate of this sort locally because you are facing yourself in your own community. In terms of health we must ask what are the resources and how we should develop them.
There is mention of taxation. At the last meeting of the Seanad I put forward an idea that we should look at the whole system of taxation to see if it could be greatly simplified and to see if a fairly high proportion of our taxes could be clearly seen to be collected at local level so that people would take responsibility at local level for what was happening, decide their own priorities and have the power — that would overcome the powerlessness — to have decision making which is effective where they live. That has to be balanced with the need for a regional and national strategy and that is where this fine point of balance comes in.
I am glad that housing was mentioned. It seems that one side of society is only too glad to have a house that does not leak and the other side of society looks upon a house as a form of currency rather than a home. In Ireland we talk in all sorts of grandiose ways about violence in the macro sense. Violence starts from within ourselves and within the home we create around the hearth. Unless we get back to this concept of a home rather than a house as a form of currency, which it has become certainly across the class divide, then we are missing out on something that is very central to health and wholeness in Irish society.
I welcome the Minister's proposals for community information centres. I presume that is a euphemism for citizens advice bureaux. I was not quite clear if there was a distinction to be made. Well staffed, properly equipped community information centres which are readily available to all the people could become one means of getting over the appalling problem of clientelism which faces Irish politicians today. A tremendous amount of energy and time is taken up in dealing with people who are entitled by law to what they want; if they are not entitled to it, if the law does not allow it, then they should not have it. If they still feel that they need it then it is up to the legislators to change the law.
I have spoken about this before on many occasions, not only here but elsewhere, and I support the community information centres as a means to starting to cope with that great problem. It is true to say that anyone who is in the rather privileged position in which I find myself in this House cannot fail to be impressed by the vast amount of work done by politicians and the enormous demands that are made on them. The only question I would sometimes ask is whether it is the right work and whether their energies could not be more effectively used in the area of creative thought to meet the challenge of the social problems which we now confront in this high technology age that we are entering.
I would like to suggest to the Minister that at some stage someone should look into what has been done in Northern Ireland in the area of social development. There is the Northern Ireland Council for Social Services who have the monthly magazine Scope which deals with many of the areas that he has dealt with this afternoon and provides a means of communication between the networks that already exist at local community level. There is the North West Foundation for Human Development which is located in Derry and which was linked with the Irish Foundation for Human Development that was inaugurated in Dublin some years ago. There is the Ulster People's College. All of these are run by and involve people who are very concerned with the issues of poverty and the need to provide a social service which balances community involvement on the one hand and the reallocation of resources to meet special needs on the other.
As we face the challenges of Irish society we must look upon ourselves as trustees for the future generations. We must look at our rivers, our land, our afforestation and our coastline and we should ask ourselves whether we are good trustees of them. I suggest that the answer is at present open to debate. What are we going to do about the pollution of our resources? What are we going to do about the litter which, in spite of the Litter Bill which was passed here last year, pollutes the countryside? How are we going to use our resources sensibly? We have more than enough of them. We must look at the land and the possibility of using it for vegetable protein as much as for animal protein. There are opportunities for developing afforestation, which has already been done to a considerable degree. There should be better protection of the maritime potential of our coastline from the effects of pollution and exploitation. We have a lot going for us.
I do not believe it will be possible to mobilise our resources if we see it all as a matter of central control and do not open up the debate locally. This National Social Services Board will help in that process. When we look at our talent we have to ask ourselves whether we are finding, developing and liberating the talent that is unique to each member of our younger generation. Are we giving them a free enough society to live in and yet not so free that they are not aware of their obligations to others.
I would say that the slogan in relation to national social service of all forms might be share today, conserve for tomorrow.
