Equality in a Time of Crisis

Equality in a Time of Crisis

Equality in a time of crisis

Anne Costello, Community Platform

The CP which has been in existence since 1996 is a national network of organisations in the Community & Voluntary sector that work to address poverty, social exclusion and inequality.

It was set up for two primary reasons – to facilitate the sectors engagement in social partnership negotiations and to create a collective critical voice for equality and anti-poverty interests at a national level.

It is currently made up of a network of 28 national organisations including organisations that represent the interests of migrants, refugees, lone parents, Travellers, women, older people, the unemployed etc.

The members of the CP play a key role in driving the equality agenda in Ireland by providing a mechanism to enable those experiencing poverty and inequality to have their voices heard in decision making arenas. Because member organisations have direct relationships with people experiencing poverty and inequality they are well placed to represent their interests.

For the purpose of to-nights presentation I am going to focus on a the findings and recommendations of a key report commissioned by the CP in 2007. The title of the document is ‘A Better Ireland is Possible – Towards an alternative vision for Ireland’. One of the reasons for commissioning this research was in response to members growing sense of frustration with the popular but one-sided view that dominated until quite recently in public and political debate that the model of development that underpinned the Celtic Tiger era was all positive for all Irish people. There was very little space to question the outcomes or the sustainability of this free-market approach and anybody who tried to question it was labelled a ‘lefty pinko’, ‘a begrudger’ or otherwise demonised.

The paper began by questioning the extent to which the Irish Government was actually responsible for the phenomenal economic growth which we witnessed over this period. It highlighted the dependent nature of that growth and wondered if perhaps it was as one commentator put it, more a case of ‘An American tiger in an Irish cage?’

Likewise it questioned the sustainability of relying on the construction boom as the engine of growth.

It pointed to the failure of the State to develop an indigenous export oriented economic sector and cautioned that the years of the Celtic Tiger camouflaged rather than resolved that long-standing problem.

It then looked at how the fruits of that growth were distributed. It examined how successful the Celtic Tiger was in tackling poverty and inequality. There is no doubt about it but there was a reduction in ‘consistent poverty’ over the period of the boom and that is a real and meaningful achievement.

When we look at relative poverty which is much more difficult to measure on balance it appears that while the income of the poorest 20% of the population did increase the real shifts were in the top end with the highest earners gaining significantly more income. Overall, the picture shows high, sustained and according to some measurements, increased income inequality over the period of the boom.

What is perhaps not surprising is that there has been very little research done into wealth inequality in Ireland. However, an interesting statistic in relation to wealth indicated that when the value of home ownership is excluded the wealthiest 1% of the population are shown to own 34% of the wealth. Of course the property and share price crash has impacted on this but still according to the Unions the wealthiest 1% own over €80bn in assets. Much of that wealth was enabled through taxation policy in the form of tax shelters and other reliefs.

Senior politicians have belittled the notion that we should be concerned about relative poverty. However, international evidence shows that we should because higher income inequality goes with higher poverty, higher unemployment, higher crime, lower standards of public services and even shorter life expectancy.

So you might ask are there examples of models of development that produce more equitable and sustainable outcomes?

The paper points out that to begin to explore alternative models of development we must be clear about what we mean by development – the present Irish model tends to define development as economic growth and use the Irish level of GDP as the measure of development. It sees economic growth as an end in itself rather than as a means to social development. However, the paper argues that this is too narrow a definition as it doesn’t take into account if the growth is sustainable i.e. will growth to-day jeopardise the needs of future generations, it places positive value on activities that could be harmful e.g. an oil spill off the coast and places no value on constructive activities such as unpaid caring work done mainly by women. Therefore, we should use alternative forms of measurement to assess progress and to do so we need to identify the values that should underpin it.

Fortunately, the authors have identified models of development that produce positive social outcomes while maintaining and reinforcing competitiveness – for example the model of development in Finland.

Finally, the report looks briefly at the role of civil society organisations in challenging the values that underpin the current model of development and in articulating an alternative. The paper suggests that Irelands model of development currently rests on the values of individualism, income maximisation and economic growth as an end in itself rather than as a means to social development. An alternative model will require the values of social solidarity taking priority, economic growth being seen as a means to sustainable and equitable development and the greater involvement of all stakeholders in decision making processes.

While Gov funding of civil society organisations has increased significantly over the last no of years there has also been a drive towards greater control of organisations directing them towards service delivery and away from articulating alternatives to the dominant model of development. There is less tolerance of the sector questioning Government policy e.g. cut in funding to EA, abolishment of NCCRI and CPA

However, as they say it’s a shame to waste a crisis and there is certainly scope and appetite in the current economic environment to explore alternative models of development. There has been a re-awakening of alliance building in the Community & voluntary sector with the establishment of new networks such as Equality & Rights Alliance to challenge the rowing back of commitments to equality. We need to create spaces to begin to begin to imaging an alternative vision for Ireland. The CP is determined to create the spaces to explore the values underpinning alternative models of development and hope to invite international experts to speak at a conference in the Summer to advance our thinking about models of development that are both competitive and equitable. We hope that you will join us on this exciting journey.