Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

Tá áthas orm deis a fháil labhairt ar an mBille seo, ar a dtugtar anois the Citizens Information Bill 2006, an Bille um Fhaisnéis do Shaoránaigh 2006. Is fada an bóthar nach bhfuil aon chasadh ann, agus seo sampla de Bhille a bhfuil a lán athruithe déanta air ó cuireadh an síol. Táimid anseo anois ag plé Bille atá tar éis teacht i ndiaidh Billí eile, na ceithre cinn atá luaite cheana féin ar a laghad, the Comhairle Bill 2000, the Comhairle (Amendment) Bill 2004 to name but two. It is also interesting to see, because the legislation is so interlinked with the needs of those with disabilities, that the Disability Federation of Ireland newsletter of August 2006 gave a very interesting overview of the federation's work and aspirations in that regard. It stated that it had met senior officials of the Department of Social and Family Affairs to reach agreement on several key issues.

I will not go through all those listed, but they include ensuring that the most vulnerable people with disabilities can automatically be referred to a personal advocacy service without their or their families' having to initiate such contact themselves and ensuring that the personal advocacy service can address quality and safety issues for individuals in respect of services currently provided. Also listed are expanding the application of the service to include those already in services, for example, where an individual's interests might be better served by alternative services and ensuring that the qualifications of personal advocates are specified in the Bill, and that its Title includes the word "advocacy", as the substantive issue concerns the advocacy service.

That is one disappointment to begin with because the Bill — unless the Minister intends to propose amendments — does not make provision in that regard. I refer here to use of the titles "Comhairle", "the citizens advocacy services support agency" or whatever. Perhaps the Minister is using the tabloid version of the Title rather than its longer counterpart. However, he must come to terms with the fact there was an understanding that the word "advocacy" would be included in the Title. I will be interested in his reply in that regard.

In June the Taoiseach indicated to the House that what has been published as the Citizens Information Bill 2006 is the Comhairle (Amendment) Bill 2004, plus a few minor amendments. The Comhairle (Amendment) Bill 2004 was, in turn, presented as being section 5 of the Disability Bill 2001, hived off as distinct legislation. The most obvious of the Government's material amendments to what was proposed in 2004 is the proposal to rename, as the citizens information board, the State agency Comhairle, which was established as recently as June 2000. The new agency is to be invested with responsibility to directly deliver to members of the public a personal advocacy service and to retain and further develop Comhairle's existing responsibility to fund and support the national network of independent non-statutory citizens information boards.

If implemented, the Citizens Information Bill 2006 will create a national statutory agency called the citizens information board, with a network of 12 offices located in Dublin and throughout the country. This board and these offices will explicitly not provide information and advice services to the public. They will instead provide funding and support, including management level support, to the network of local independent non-statutory citizens information boards including — I am particularly proud of this — the award winning Fingal (North County) Citizens Information Service, which provides services in Balbriggan, Skerries, Swords and Malahide. I know many of the people involved with the latter and am aware that they take their work seriously and do an excellent job.

The issues that arise in respect of the Bill are causing public confusion by imposing an unnecessary and unwanted change of name on a recognised and successful public agency and writing off the considerable investment during the past six years in building up the national brand name of Comhairle. One must recall that Aer Lingus previously spent many millions on tilting its shamrock. I wonder whether making changes of this nature are considered good value for money, particularly when a brand is already in existence. Perhaps most importantly, however, there is the issue of a State agency moving in and colonising the citizens information brand that has been built up by non-governmental efforts over a period of decades.

Informing these matters is a profound and fundamental issue that goes to the heart of pluralism in our democracy. Since the first community-based citizen information centres were opened, without any State support, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, they have derived their mandate from the communities they developed to serve, rather than from the apparatus of State. The individual mandates of the different citizens information services throughout the country are plural, not singular. They are citizens information services primarily because they are citizen initiated, citizen run, citizen directed and, in the main and largely through voluntary effort, citizen delivered. They have been supported in recent years by professional management and structured, formal and broadly representative voluntary boards of management.

The citizens information movement finally won a measure of State recognition, without financial support, in July 1975. It has developed steadily in the three decades since on the back of sustained voluntary effort at local community level. Citizens information services are practical and admirable examples of participative citizenship in action — self-help and assistance provided to people in their dealings with the sometimes bewildering requirements of the State in its multifaceted role as a facilitator and provider of social services.

The Minister — I hope he takes this as a compliment because that is how it is meant — as one of the canniest and most experienced members of the Cabinet seems to have made a fundamental mistake in his approach to this legislation in that he appears to have interpreted the term "citizens information" as meaning citizen-directed information provision, rather than what it actually represents. This misunderstanding appears to lie at the root of the misjudged initiative to bring into being a State agency that will be a creature of the Oireachtas, overseen by ministerial appointees, and called the citizens information board.

The State, regardless of who is in government, has a close relationship with the public, including its citizens, but it is not that public. The notice placed — this is an example, albeit it in another context, which serves to illustrate that to which I am referring — at the entrance to the memorial gardens in Inchicore read "Closed to the public, State function in progress". For many people who work for citizens information boards, that emphasises that there is a fundamental misunderstanding with regard to what we are trying to achieve.

The bulk of inquiries encountered by the personnel of citizens information centres, CICs, the vast majority of whom work on a voluntary basis, refer to services provided by the State but which do not depend on citizenship. Access to most publicly provided services depends generally on ordinary or habitual residence only. The type of queries to which I refer relate to access to health services, housing, liability for income tax and PRSI, entitlements to social welfare payments and access to regulatory protection for consumers or employees. These are the main areas of activity of the CICs and none of them are citizen specific.

A matter of increasing concern to citizens information centres during the past decade has been the provision of services by the State in the areas of asylum seeking and immigration. Again, these are citizen-provided, State-supported information advocacy, support and referral services available to people new to Ireland. By definition, these are services provided to citizens of countries other than Ireland and to stateless persons. The Minister's ill-considered citizens information board initiative runs the risk of making such services appear to have exclusively citizen access only. In that context, what is being done is slightly sinister and potentially dangerous. I do not perceive that the Minister is attempting to proceed in that way, although such an interpretation can be applied to what he is proposing.

Another slightly sinister aspect of the Bill is that it is presented by a Minister who, as Government Chief Whip to the late Mr. Haughey — we all remember Mr. Haughey, God rest him — was involved in the disgraceful attempt in 1987 to dismantle the network of citizens information centres and the rudimentary structures that existed to support them at that time. The Minister can explain the background to these events in due course but the account that has been reported indicates that what occurred in 1987 led to the defeat of the then Government on an Opposition motion, while volunteer personnel of the CICs picketed outside the Kildare Street gate on another cold November afternoon.

This Bill was published in the absence of any specific consultation with the bodies that will be immediately affected by it, namely, the 40 independent local non-statutory citizen information boards that have, with support from the old National Social Services Board and later Comhairle, been in operation in the period since the first of them formally incorporated as a limited liability, for charitable purposes, non-profit company in 1995. Did the Minister consult the existing citizens information boards or the national organisation that represents them? Has the board of Comhairle approved the proposed name change to citizens information board, with all that it entails?

The Minister for Social and Family Affairs appears to be proceeding to appropriate to the State the largely voluntary efforts of an established network of specifically non-governmental organisations to be effected through the utterly inappropriate renaming of an existing State agency as the citizens information board. Rather than proceed any further with the Bill which is, in subtle and profound ways, challenging some of the most basic tenets of democracy, it would be more appropriate to refer the Bill to a committee of the Oireachtas which might then, on an all-party basis, take appropriate time to hear the views of those who have accumulated decades of experience in the management and delivery of these crucial services, which are supplied to citizens and non-citizens alike without prejudice or discrimination.

It is remarkable that, as far as I have been able to ascertain, no director of Comhairle or of its predecessor organisations, the National Social Services Board and the National Social Service Council, has in the period since 1974 been invited to appear before a committee of the Oireachtas and neither has any chairperson or chief executive of a citizen information service, notwithstanding the direct front-line exposure such persons necessarily have to the cutting edge of social policy in its variety of expressions. It is an appropriate time to make good that remarkable oversight by successive Oireachtas committee chairpersons and what better place to start than with a discussion on the merits and difficulties contained in the Citizen Information Bill 2006? It is important the people who have given so much service, time and voluntary effort are included in whatever development takes place. Nobody is saying we can stand still. Nobody is saying we should not implement all the recommendations, for example, those supported by the Disability Federation of Ireland and others, in the legislation but it is important not to lose what was a precious and important part of the services provided to date.

Tá sé tábhachtach nach ndéanaimid neamhaird den ainm a bhí ann ach oiread, mar tá an t-ainm sin luachmhar. Táimid tar éis litir a fháil ó Chomhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge a chuireann fáilte roimh an Bhille sa mhéid is go bhfuil sé i gceist aidhmeanna Comhairle a leathnú agus a fheabhsú. Aontaíonn an chomhdháil go mbeadh eolas ar fáil gan dua do shaoránaigh na tíre seo agus, go deimhin, do gach duine atá lonnaithe sa tír, faoina gcearta sóisialta agus na seirbhísí atá dlite dóibh.

Tá imní ar Chomhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge, áfach, faoin athrú atá i gceist a dhéanamh ar theideal an chomhlachta phoiblí seo, a thagann faoi scáth Acht na dTeangacha Oifigiúla 2003. Ní thuigeann an chomhdháil cén chúis go mbeadh gá an teideal Comhairle a fhágáil ar lár. De bharr go bhfuil eolas ag an bpobal i gcoitinne ar Chomhairle, agus ar a haidhmeanna, feictear don chomhdháil gur ag cruthú deacrachtaí a bheadh an t-athrú atá i gceist. Feictear di freisin gur chéim síos don Ghaeilge a bheadh i gceist an teideal a athrú. Gan aon dabht, tá athrú mór tagtha ar an dtír le tamall anuas, le líon na n-imirceach méadaithe, ach ní aon leithscéal é sin chun an teideal a athrú.

Tá mé tar éis labhairt le go leor inimirceach atá ina gcónaí i mo bhaile féin, Baile Brigín, agus atá an-tábhachtach i saol an phobail. Is féidir a bheith cinnte nach dteastaíonn ó inimircigh tríd is tríd go mbeadh ísliú ar stádas theanga na hÉireann agus ar ár gcultúr chun iad a shásamh. Tagann an t-athrú sin salach ar an stádas nua atá faighte ag an Rialtas don Ghaeilge san Aontas Eorpach. Codarsnacht iomlán atá ann sin.

Iarrann Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge go bhfagfaí an teideal mar atá nó, má cheaptar gur gá soiléiriú breise a dhéanamh, go mbeadh an t-ainm ar a laghad mar Chomhairle, an Bord um Fhaisnéis do Shaoránaigh, nó Comhairle, Citizens Information Board. Tá sé fíorthábhachtach go mbeadh cosaint ag an Ghaeilge i mbealach nach mbeadh conspóideach. Tá an t-ainm Comhairle ann, agus más gá soiléiriú a dhéanamh air, is cinnte gur féidir é sin a phlé. Tá mé sásta éisteacht leis an Aire, mar tá mé tar éis é seo a phlé leis taobh amuigh den Teach in aice linn anseo. Ar a laghad, is ceart gan neamhaird a dhéanamh den ainm gan cúis mhaith a bheith ann. Níl an chúis láidir go leor, agus beimid ag cruthú an íomhá go bhfuilimid ar aon dul le Bristol, Birmingham, Londain, nó aon chathair eile i Sasana má leanaimid ar aghaidh mar atáimid gan an focal Comhairle a bheith mar chuid de.

Tríd is tríd, tá sé tábhachtach go mbeidh an tAire ag plé le feabhas a chur ar sheirbhísí, ach san am céanna, tá sé tábhachtach nach gcailleofaí an chuid luachmhar den duine deonach agus an t-ainm a thugann le fios gur tír faoi leith atá ionann le teanga faoi leith. Cuireann inimircigh fáilte roimhe sin.

See this speech in context