Senator Ryan's motion under Standing Order 29. The time limit on this motion is one and a half hours. The Chair suggests that the Minister should be allowed at least 20 minutes to reply. Is that agreed? Senator Brendan Ryan.
Galway Hostel for Homeless Men.
Acting Chairman
This is my first opportunity in this Seanad to welcome the Minister to the Chamber. Perhaps he does not feel too welcome in the circumstances, but he is welcome. I regret having to raise an issue like this in this House in this manner at this late hour. I regret any inconvenience I may have caused to the Minister, or at least I would not wish to have done it in this fashion. My motion refers to the failure of the social services section of the Western Health Board to comply with a directive of the Employment Equality Agency with regard to a proposal to employ all male staff in a hostel for homeless men and the compliance of the Department of Health with that situation.
The central issue in this is a directive from the Employment Equality Agency. However, it refers to a proposed hostel for homeless men in Galway, and in order to see this problem about an all-male staff, the problem of the homeless and homelessness in Galway has to be put in its perspective if the issue is to be understood and seen in its relevant context.
The problem of homelessness in Galway was first identified about three years ago, not by the Western Health Board, not by the Galway Social Service Council, which is effectively a function of the health board though it is theoretically separate, but by a group of individuals. They were, to my recollection, predominantly female and they suffered no great fright, harrassment or damage to their integrity or their virtue from the fact that they were working with the homeless and with homeless men. That was three years ago. At that stage the Western Health Board saw fit to congratulate these people for the work they were doing and to remark on how well they were doing it — again, may I hasten to add, a group who were predominantly female. So, the sex does not matter but since it is being made to matter we have to talk about it.
The health board agreed that a problem existed and needed to be dealt with quickly. That is as far back as September 1980. We then had the sort of double shuffle which, unfortunately, besets the homeless in this country, which is that suddenly the corporation and the local authority became involved. We had about a year of this sort of shuffle in which the local authority endeavoured to pretend that it was doing something about it and then got a long statement from the Department of the Environment shifting the problem back to the health board and taking it out of the hands of the local authority. This is the sort of thing that happens to the homeless but nobody usually notices because nobody usually notices the homeless until something happens to them, and something, I fear, is going to happen to them fairly shortly in Galway if action is not taken.
The Western Health Board then proposed a temporary shelter and caused some confusion there. There were local objections and it was alleged that the objections would not have been as severe if a different and more respectable — and it has been alleged a more responsible group — were running it than the Simon Community. My interest and connection with the Simon Community is both wellknown and fairly well regarded, if I am to judge by recent election results. Therefore, any perception of the Simon Community as an irresponsible organisation is confined to the ranks of the prejudiced and perhaps the over-sensitive bureaucrats who do not like voluntary organisations who answer back, but it definitely is not reflected in public opinion either locally or nationally. Nevertheless, this shelter was set up and it was staffed by men and by women, though there were some difficulties in the early stages because of the appallingly inadequate facilities that were available there.
In the manner of these things sometimes, this shelter was burnt down. It was nothing more that a temporary pre-fab, but it was burnt down, and facilities were then provided for homeless people in what had been a night shelter for men run by the Legion of Mary. This had facilities for men and women and was staffed by men and women consistently. Malicious rumours have been circulated by agents of statutory bodies about what happened in that house. The rumours are lies. They have absolutely no foundation. In fact, they have been used to justify decisions of policy and they are based on total fabrications.
The Simon Community were unhappy. They were living in an area which was highly populated and they had made commitments to the local community which they intended and intend to meet, and therefore they wished to have a permanent shelter or hostel provided for people. Simon then began to accentuate their campaign of action to try to persuade a rather indolent and lethargic health board to do something quickly about it. The response of the health board and its agent, the Social Services Council, was to accuse the Simon Community of being irresponsible. So what? No problem at all, except that the response went further. The response surfaced in the form of a proposal to build a night shelter for homeless men, and staff were to be recruited, paid for fully by the State and the advertisement for those staff specifically stated that the staff should be male.
One thing is clear from that chronology, and that is that in the area of homelessness in Galway the Simon Community are the experts. I do not like blowing the trumpet of an organisation I am closest to, but in the light of the circumstances in Galway it is very necessary to do so. Indeed, in reply to a Dáil question on 8 February 1983 on homelessness in Galway I found it most ironic that the figure the Minister provided for homeless people in Galway was quite clearly supplied to the Western Health Board by the Galway Simon Community, because they are the only people who know and they are the ones who are dealing with the problem.
The philosophy of the Simon Community is based on compassion, acceptance and support, not on control. The word "control" has been referred to in a context which would horrify you if you were not dealing on a day-to-day basis with the problem. In that context, the Western Health Board proposed to exclude the Simon Community. They decided it. Simon had nothing to do with it, contrary again to their malicious and false allegations. They also decided to employ four full-time staff. Apart from the clear breach of the constitution of the Galway Social Service Council, which undertakes not to: "supplant or interfere with the autonomy of existing voluntary organisations or compete with them..." and bearing in mind that that council is controlled by the Western Health Board, there was this extraordinary predilection and insistence upon male staff. For me this has implications of 19th century asylums where big, strong heavy men were required to keep people under control who would otherwise be a threat presumably either to themselves or to the community. I and other people sought in great detail reasons for this insistence on male staff, and the more we probed the more appalling the situation became. That was when the question of the need to control people arose, that you would be dealing with men who were difficult and so on and, therefore, you would need men to control them, that these men had been involved in the abuse of children, which was a lie, that these men had been involved in the abuse of women, another lie. These were the stories that were told to us and this was the reason they said they needed men to control the homeless men of Galway. It was because of malicious and complete distortions of the facts based on no direct contact with the people involved. I emphasise the organisation that is now being excluded knew these people best but their views were never sought on these issues and their views on the best method of staffing were never sought.
These fictions about the abuse of children, about violence, and about abuse of women, are the classic anti-homeless fictions which have beset those campaigning, whether it be for homeless women, children or men in Dublin, in Galway and in many other places in this country. They are nothing more than fictions. The gardaí will tell you that in the context of the problems of crimes of violence the chronically homeless are not particularly high on their list of problems. The sort of prejudices that are being fostered by these people would be more appropriate to a Sunday tabloid than to the pronouncements of officials of the caring services.
The reality is the opposite. Indeed, a senior officer of the Western Health Board has been insisting publicly on the need for integration in psychiatric hospitals because he recognises the need for integration of the sexes and the therapeutic value of that integration. That is in the psychiatric services, but apparently when it comes to the homeless those sort of considerations do not arise. I will quote from a letter from a member of the Galway Simon Community who was being discriminated against by this provision for all-male staff: "The experience of working with homeless men is that many of them have difficulty in relating in a meaningful manner to women."
Anyone who has ever dealt with homeless men will know that one of the unfortunate consequences of homelessness is precisely that many of the single homeless having spent most of their lives in an all-male environment, industrial schools, army, prison etc. find that the culture is essentially all-male. If one is serious about the normalisation and rehabilitation of these men one does not employ an all-male staff. Such a policy only compounds their social handicaps and does little to bring about a constructive change to their lives. I defy anybody to suggest otherwise. I have worked with homeless men, men who were alledgedly violent, and I know the value and the contribution of full-time female staff to their happiness and their comfort, in the capacity to persuade them to live in the dignity that any human being should achieve. It is total distortion and totally untrue to suggest that all-male staff are necessary for reasons of control or otherwise. It is ante-diluvian, it is 19th century and it is fundamentally anti-woman. One particularly well-qualified woman acquaintance of mine who is a social worker, has a certificate of qualification in social work, has worked with the probation service and has spent 12 months working with the homeless, is apparently ineligible to be considered for a staff position in this hostel for the homeless in Galway. It is because of this woman's commitment that this issue has been raised with the Employment Equality Agency.
When the Employment Equality Agency approached those in Galway who were attempting to recruit this all-male staff, they were greeted with misrepresentation of a most extraordinary kind. It was alleged that the hostel had no facilities for women. An impression was given that an old premises was being refurbished and there could not be any provision for women. The truth is the exact opposite. In spite of abundant evidence about the importance of female staffing in a situation like this, the Galway Social Service Council with the full support of the Western Health Board proposed to build a hostel, absolutely new, with no facilities for women involved. There was no question of a problem. It was designed to exclude women, it was planned to exclude women. It had nothing to do with any problem other than the fact of a deliberate decision to exclude women from the service. That was a misjudgment and a misrepresentation of the problems and personalities of the homeless, of the culture of homelessness and of the needs of homeless people.
Extraordinarily enough, the clause under the Employment Equality Act which those agencies endeavoured to invoke concerned problems of lighthouses and such buildings. They endeavoured to distort totally the employment equality legislation. When the issue was clarified to the Employment Equality Agency they contacted the Galway Social Service Council by telegram pointing out that the all-male policy was in the view of the Employment Equality Agency illegal, and effectively directing them to insert a new advertisement leaving out the all-male staffing requirement. It appears that the Galway Social Service Council will not comply with that directive. The Galway Social Service Council, who are effectively an arm of the statutory services, and are not independent of the statutory services in the case of Galway and therefore are an instrument of public policy, have decided to defy the State-sponsored Employment Equality Agency in terms of staffing proposals because of anti-female prejudice.
I did not want to raise this issue here but as it developed I endeavoured on many occasions to contact the Minister. I wanted to meet him quietly to present the facts to him. I rang his office on many occasions, I got many promises from his office to let me know when he could meet me. None of those promises was ever met, therefore I have had to resort to this tactic. I had no success in dealing with the Minister. Early in February I wrote a letter to him. Inter alia, I indicated that the all-male environment, apart from being illegal, is unhelpful to the residents, and that is the experience of the Simon Community. I have so far received no reply to that letter, though I understand today from an official of the Minister's Department that the Minister has written to me indicating that he is more or less happy with the decisions taken by the Western Health Board and the Galway Social Service Council. I will be delighted if the Minister can tell me when he replies that that is not true. I have been endeavouring to contact him for three weeks and I am not in any way attempting to misrepresent him. It is in final frustration that I am here and this is not the way I like to do business.
The Minister, we were told, accepted the justification of the Western Health Board of the need for all-male staff — this is what his officials told us — because of the problems associated with these homeless people. This is clear anti-female prejudice on the part of a State statutory agency apparently being complied with by the Minister. I find it astonishing that a Minister of the Labour Party and a socialist, part of a government who are and claim to be a reforming government, who in particular have laid emphasis on the role of women in society, could either actively or passively tolerate the treatment of women in this issue and in general the principles, activities and carry-on of those agencies of the State who are responsible for this mess.
If that was the end of it, perhaps I could have left it to my female colleagues to assert the rights of women. However, the unfortunate consequences of this policy are that, because of the involvement of the Employment Equality Agency and the apparent refusal to accept their opinion and their attempt at a directive on the advertising, this matter will now be brought by that agency to the Labour Court and, if necessary, to the courts of this land in order to assert and defend the right of women to be treated as equals in employment. The implications for our equality legislation are enormous. If it is open to any employer to define any premises in which he proposes to employ staff in such a way that facilities for women are excluded, then any employer who does not want to employ woman can get around the requirements of the Employment Equality Agency. A fundamental issue of principle is involved here, identified as such by the Employment Equality Agency. Unfortunately, agencies of the State are involved in that question.
That is not the central problem. It will be a matter for the Minister, the Western Health Board and the Galway Social Service Council to deal with the embarrassment. The problem is that such procedures will involve long delays which will leave a newly-built, health-board owned and financed hostel unstaffed. I am assured by the Employment Equality Agency that the proposals are illegal and that any appointments made under that advertising and policy will be invalid. Consequently we will have long delays while this whole thing is worked out, in the context of what is happening in Galway, and this is why the matter has particular urgency.
Pressures from local residents on the existing hostel for homeless men will increase. They will not be able to understand why they have to live with a hostel for homeless men which frightens them — even though there is no need for them to be frightened — when another new hostel is vacant. It will be empty because the question of who should staff it will be going through the Labour Court and the courts generally if necessary. Ultimately the homeless men of Galway will be the victims of this particularly shortsighted and sexist policy. The pressures of the local residents, I fear, will produce a situation in which the Simon Community will be forced to leave their existing premises. They are not being allowed to take over the new premises because those in authority have decided they are not fit to do so. Instead homeless men will be back on the streets of Galway directly as a consequence of this proposal to employ all-male staff. I find it unacceptable, the homeless men of Galway will find it unacceptable and I sincerely hope the Minister will also find it unacceptable. This will be the first time in 18 months that anybody will be sleeping in the streets of Galway. Since Simon opened in Galway 18 months ago nobody has slept rough in Galway.
In my view the Minister has in this whole issue accepted unquestioningly the view of the official bureaucracy which has nationally failed miserably to solve the problem of homelessness. We have abundant evidence of that, though I regret that on the basis of some recent replies to questions about county homes the information does not seem to have reached the Minister's desk. We have abundant evidence of the incapacity, inability and unwillingness of the State caring services to deal with the problem of homelessness. They dealt with the problem by ignoring it, by closing down wards, county homes and so on. We have abundant evidence of the inability of this bureaucracy to deal with the problem of homelessness, yet the Minister apparently accepts his advice entirely from that source. He could not find himself in a position to discuss it with me before apparently he came to a decision, and could not find himself in a position to tell that bureaucracy that there are bigger issues than their obsession with sexism. So much for reform and in particular for the much-touted public policy of partnership between statutory and voluntary agencies.
The Minister in accepting as justification for an all-male staff the need to keep people under control has given official credence to the view that homeless men are dangerous, uncontrollable and implicitly, therefore, objectionable. All in all, I regret to say, it is a magnificent job of confirming prejudices against the homeless. If the prejudice against the homeless permeates into the very office of the Minister for Health — though I suspect it is not a view that the Minister holds himself and I am sure this is an oversight rather than a deliberate policy decision — how can those of us who are trying to change public opinion about the homeless and to direct it towards dealing with the problem of homelessness rather than moving it on to the next parish or the next village or the next street, do so if official credence is given to this prejudice in the staffing policy for hostels for the homeless? Most of all, the policy of all-male staffing has for the reasons I have outlined placed the homeless of Galway at great risk.
In conclusion I would like first of all to reject categorically the distortions and half-truths of the Western Health Board and other agencies in Galway with regard to myself who have been named on a few occasions with regard to the Simon Community nationally and locally, and above all and before all else, the distortions and misrepresentations of those agencies with regard to the problem of homelessness and the personalities, culture, attitudes and so on of homeless people, because that is the biggest single dishonesty in the whole thing. I want badly a hostel for homeless men in Galway. I believe it is needed. The resources and the expertise are there to deal with it. A hostel must work. A hostel must be compassionate, patient, accepted. It is our experience that those qualities and that atmosphere can be generated only in a mixed sex environment where men and women are working on the staff, and it will not and cannot be generated in an all-male environment. I would like to reassert and to ask the Minister to reassert the basic principle of partnership on a basis of equality between statutory and voluntary organisations in the running of social services at local level. I request immediate decisive action by the Minister to remedy this appalling situation.
While I do not share Senator Ryan's detailed knowledge of this problem at this hostel, he mentioned a couple of issues of principle which I too would like to underline. The first of these which he mentioned last and once in passing during his speech is the importance of the partnership between statutory and voluntary bodies in running our social services. This kind of policy has been supposedly the policy of successive Governments for years. I recall that Deputy Erskine Childers when he was Minister for Health and another of the present Minister's predecessors, Deputy Brendan Corish, were particularly emphatic in their support of this kind of idea. This idea simply cannot work if the partnership is seen to be one of one partner who is totally in authority and the little boys — or indeed the little girls — who are simply to be handed out grants, asked to give account of them and regarded all the time as the junior partner in the business. In the present atmosphere where we are being told over and over again that there is such an incredible shortage of resources for growth in the social services and in the provision of care within the community for various deprived people and people who are facing different kinds of handicaps and difficulties, it is all the more important that voluntary bodies should be encouraged and should be treated as adult bodies who know what they are doing and who have a certain amount of expertise, in some fields more expertise than the statutory authorities. Unfortunately for some reason, I am not saying always, a sort of tendency seems to occur, towards creeping dictatorship by the statutory bodies, once they are working along with the voluntary body in any area, to want to take over, to have total control. I am afraid that in some areas what I have described as creeping dictatorship tends to become galloping dictatorship and the voluntary body is either shoved out of what they have been doing or made to feel that they are very much the inferior partner. It appears that this has been happening in this case in Galway. I know that the present Minister would have a strong commitment towards this area in principle and I would ask him to look at this area and to make sure that the bodies who are nominally under his control in his Department would cease to act in a way which suggests that they are trying to either push out voluntary bodies or make voluntary bodies very much the lesser partner in any enterprise which is jointly undertaken.
The second principle that I wish to refer to is that which has been pursued by the Employment Equality Agency. The fact that male only staff are to be recruited for this hostel is an obvious breach of the law, and it seems extraordinary that a statutory body should be prepared to defy the law of the land in this way and that they are prepared to be brought to the Labour Court and perhaps to the High Court because of the policy that they are pursuing. The rationale of this idea of male only staff seems to be extraordinary. The argument seems to be that men are needed to control these men. I have not the same experience of homeless men that Senator Ryan has but I believe that on the whole they are unfortunate rather than violent and aggressive. They have their difficulties; nobody would deny that. Of course they can be difficult, but the kind of difficulties they have do not necessarily need to be met with brawn and beef. They are the type of difficulties that need to be met with compassion and patience, and who is to say that only males are capable of providing the compassion and patience which are needed?
As far as being able to exert authority is concerned, it is also extremely insulting to suggest that women are not able to behave firmly or to exert authority. We have only to see the work of women in the probation service where they have to deal with very difficult cases, and indeed sometimes very much more aggressive cases than are appearing amongst homeless men, to see that they are well able to exert authority. As for sexual problems of one sort or another I would have thought that both the Western Health Board and the Minister would have realised from the problems that arose in Kincora boys' home in Northern Ireland that having a male staff only does not necessarily do away with sexual problems or mean that we will do away with problems of that nature.
I would have thought that the women of Ireland today are well capable of looking after themselves. A woman who applies, is accepted after competition and interview for a job in this situation is the kind of woman who will be able to look after herself and deal with the problems that will arise therein. To fly in the face of the Employment Equality Agency and say that all we need to take care of homeless men are Mr. Atlases who can keep them well down is a complete distortion of what is needed. It is also breaking the law.
Like Senator Ryan, I am surprised that it is the present Minister who is involved in this kind of situation, and I can only feel that he has to some extent been given selective information. I would be very reluctant to think that he himself would have these sort of opinions about the equal employment of women or the position of voluntary bodies. In fact I know that he does not hold such opinions. Therefore, I appeal to him that he should at least look at the whole situation again and listen to people who are not officials of the Western Health Board and who are not part of the statutory set-up to ensure that the law of the land is complied with.
First of all I welcome the Minister and congratulate him on his appointment to the very important portfolio which he now holds. It is unfortunate that on his first coming into this House as Minister with an overall responsibility he has got such a picture of one of the bodies over which he exercises ultimate control. I do not stand here as spokesman for the Western Health Board, but as a member of that board I feel it is my duty to answer some of the insinuations that have been made in the House tonight. I would not in any way defend a policy of discrimination against females in the employment sector. That question can be handled by a Department other than the Department of Health. On the question of the health board's involvement and selective information, we have had a feast of selective information on this point this evening. To suggest that an all-male staffing would be involved in the running of the functions of this hostel is incorrect. Perhaps an advertisement has appeared in the public press for filling male staffing requirements, but I want to put to the Minister that the Western Health Board have provided the facility whereby the Social Service Council of Galway, the Simon Community and the health board themselves will have an input into the staffing and running of that hostel. Thereby it will not be an all-male staffing situation.
Senator Ryan declared tonight that they have an expert in that field; it is the duty of Simon to present that name to the health board in conjunction with all the other agencies who will be involved in the running of that hostel. Therein lies the solution to the problem that Senator Ryan seems to have, with regard to making it a sexist institution. It is incorrect also to say that the Western Health Board within County Galway do not operate similar facilities within the county. They do in fact. Whatever research has been gone into to produce such facts as Senator Ryan has stated is inadequate.
The history of the involvement of the voluntary bodies, and in particular the Simon Community in Galway, with the health boards has been very unfortunate. There has been a great deal of discontent among local communities, and that is not peculiar to Galway, as to the siting of proposed hostels or facilities for the homeless. The homeless of Galway need urgent attention and the health board took urgent steps to comply with the statutory law to provide that facility.
For three years.
They took steps to provide a shelter for the homeless of Galway. To suggest that the present proposal is inadequate might be correct in one instance in so far as now it is recognised that such a facility is being provided in the city. There is always a focal point where unfortunate people gather and people who would otherwise be in other towns and cities have drifted towards Galway city. The original provision of this facility for 12 people is not now enough because there are 16 or more people in that position in Galway at present. To suggest that no facilities are being provided for females in Galway is not correct in so far as females have a facility in Galway in Bethlehem House, which is being run by a voluntary organisation at present. It might not be the ideal situation as regards a mixing of the sexes, but with a problem which is new to the city a genuine effort has been made to provide facilities for both sexes within the limited resources that are available to the Western Health Board.
Senator Ryan also said that the suggestion of the health board was that they would be committed to psychiatric institutions.
On a point of information, I never suggested any such thing.
Senator Burke to continue.
There was reference to psychiatric institutions. The reason why the health board were doing that was that very many of the people so involved would have alcohol-related problems and the health board in Galway provide, probably the only one outside Dublin, facilities whereby people who are suffering from alcoholic-related diseases can have treatment. Senator Ryan probably quoted out of context it was in that interest that the health board so decided.
The question of partnership must be emphasised in order to put in perspective the arguments put forward by Senator Ryan. Open invitations have been given to all voluntary organisations to become involved in this and in that way there was no debarring of females. I hope the Minister will investigate this thoroughly and receive a clear indication from the health boards that they have, at all times, been perfectly amenable to the fact that the personalities involved could have been female as well as male. The suggestion that the Social Service Council in Galway or any other area as an arm of the health boards would not include voluntary workers, as in the case that has been made tonight, is incorrect. All of the social service councils have voluntary organisations as members. To suggest that health boards are anti-voluntary organisations is ludicrous to say the least, as the very nature of a social service council is that it embraces all voluntary organisations as well as supervisors from the health boards.
It is regrettable that the advertisement was taken out of context and used as a vehicle to attack the health boards in this House. The real issues involved, which I am sure have not gone unnoticed by the Senator who proposed the motion, have been twisted out of context and been used in a deliberate fashion to attack a health board which is providing this facility.
I received notice from Senator Ryan of the matter to be raised on the Adjournment this evening. His comments in relation to the method of recruitment of the staff concerned are correct. In such a serious situation we should resist the temptation, and it is a temptation to which I too have yielded, to engage in confrontation. I do not know the precise relationship between the Simon Community in Galway and the health board. I cannot comment on the allegations that there have been distortions as Senator Ryan has said. I do not know what precisely the half truths are that he has alluded to or the alleged misrepresentations that he speaks of or the allegations of an uncaring bureaucracy. But I do know one thing: I have heard that language used on many occasions. Indeed, I have often used it myself. There is a temptation to yield to that assessment and we, as public representatives, have a tremendous capacity in this country to use the language of confrontation and a tremendous reluctance to use the language of resolving the problem. There is a serious problem and an impasse between Simon and the health board at local level.
There has been no delay whatsoever on my part in attempting to assess the situation. I received his communication on 4 February. I contacted the board and I received a report on 18 February. I do not recall any statements made by officials in my Department to the Senator in the context of a decision which I may be arriving at on the matter. We should be very careful, therefore, in trying to communicate with one another on this question.
An official of the Minister's Department told me a letter was in the post for me from the Minister.
Only a letter which I sign and you receive from me matters. Letters in the post are an entirely different matter. It is what the Senator acutally receives, and I will be very careful in preparing any response to him on this matter.
I want to deal with the allegation the Senator made in relation to the appointment of staff, because he is on very firm ground. I regret that the advertisement that was put in by the Galway Social Service Board — I have a copy of it — referred to male staff with an interest in the problems of homelessness required to run a hostel for homeless men in Galway city. It has been difficult to get through to Galway on the phone and find out whether the health board received a directive from the equality agency. I accept that the advertisement should not have been put in in that form, because it advertised for male staff only. I am well aware and do not need to be reminded at all, that the EEC directives on equality are very stringent. It appears that the Social Service Council in inserting an advertisement at this stage, if I may use the language of slight exaggeration, does not have a leg to stand on in terms of the law of the country. It may have felt that under the Act it had an entitlement to do so, but the directives on equality are very stringent and already it appears that some sections of the Act are contrary to the EEC directives. I share the Senator's view that there does appear to be a problem there. I can assure Senator Ryan that I will request the health board to contact the Social Service Council to ensure that the appropriate measures are taken and that both male and female prospective applicants have an equal right to employment in the hostel. There can be no question as far as I am concerned of a refusal to employ female staff.
I received the Senator's correspondence on the matter on 21 February and have had very little opportunity to consider the matter. The Senator is correct is raising the point. He need have no concern; whether he raised the point here or in correspondence I would have followed up the matter one way or the other. I will contact the chief executive officer of the Western Health Board with my views on the matter. I have no doubt that he will contact the council to have the situation rectified as a matter or urgency.
Regarding the question locally of shelter for homeless men in Galway there are quite conflicting views. I am very concerned that these views should be on a point of impasse. I acknowledge the tremendous contribution of Simon throughout the country, but Simon in Galway are of the view that the shelter is too small, too crowded and that it would be run by male staff only. I have only seen the advertisement in the past day or two. It is also alleged by Simon that it would cost twice as much as what Simon could run the shelter for. Frankly, I do not have enough information to reach any definitive conculsion on that. Simon in Galway also want to be involved in running the temporary shelter along with the health board on a 50/50 basis. Simon want to plan for a long-term hostel to be built on the grounds of the Regional Hospital. In that regard, I can assure Senator Ryan that the site on the Regional Hospital grounds has not been abandoned by the health board. It was rather that this opportunity came along to build the current hostel and Simon want full-time volunteers to be used in the running of these shelters.
I concur with the general sentiments of Senator McGuinness that we must have effective local constructive co-operation between the voluntary bodies and the statutory agencies at local level. It does require a meeting of minds and a joint co-operative approach. I do not hold the view — and I have been a Dáil Deputy since 1969 — that because there is a statutory agency in existence automatically it must be perceived as being either a creeping or a galloping dictatorship. Again, that is the language of confrontation. If one uses that language it is perhaps inevitable that public servants and public officials will react in kind. I make a plea for that co-operation and I hope that whether in Galway, Wexford and Cork or anywhere else where there is interaction between voluntary agencies and the statutory bodies, these matters will be resolved.
I want to make one emphatic statement: I am not going to resolve them. I cannot resolve them and I cannot go around the country advising the health boards on what they should do in terms of local implementation of statutory functions. Otherwise, we may as well abolish all statutory agencies and all the voluntary agencies and have everything run from the Custom House. That is not possible because we are the largest employer in the country. We employ 60,000 people in the delivery of health care and responsibility has to be devolved onto the health boards. I met the chief executive officers and the chairmen of the health boards last Friday together and impressed upon them the absolute need for full joint co-operation at local level between the voluntary bodies and the statutory agencies. I hope that will come about. I hope that the impasse in Galway in relation to the new shelter will be resolved. I very much regret that Simon declined the health board's invitation to become involved in the management committee of the——
That is not true.
Perhaps this is the language of confrontation. I may be wrong, but that is the information I had.
The Minister is misinformed.
I willingly stand corrected, but that is the information I had. It shows how the absence of communication can create misinterpretations on my part. That is the information I had and I am glad to see it publicly challenged. That kind of joint participation would be invaluable because, after all, what matters in Galway is that homeless men and women have accommodation. The respective roles and views of the agencies involved should be subordinate whether it be Simon, Senators or Ministers, to the need to provide effective local accommodation for homeless men and women. They come first and must be seen to be coming first irrespective of our views. In conclusion I assure Senator Ryan that I will contact the health board, request that the recruitment situation be rectified and that equal full opportunity be given to men and women to contribute their expertise to work in this setting. I have no doubt that the health board will respond.
I thank the Senator for raising the matter and bringing it so sharply to my attention. I have no doubt, if I know him at all, that he will probably be doing it every week as long as he is in the Seanad, and fair dues to him.
The Seanad adjourned at 7.15 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Wednesday, 9 March 1983.