Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

When I walk some parts of the country, I wonder why children I see around the streets are not in school. They are almost abandoned during the day. Are we doing enough collectively as a society to assist parents who are in crisis, families who are under huge pressure and children who are almost feral in some cases? When we look at society, we see it becoming harsher. A them-and-us attitude is beginning to establish itself. I always thought growing up that we were here collectively. We looked out for each other, supported each other and willed each other on, but a lot of that seems to be going in many communities. It is clearly something that is anathema to any republic. Cherishing all the children equally is fine in sentiment but more needs to be done to ensure it has a meaningful impact on people's lives on the ground.

The Government will point out its successes and we will point out its failures. That is the nature of the adversarial assembly we work in. No generation of politicians can adjudicate impartially on its policies and their success. It is those who live through the policies, in other words the next generation, who can impartially and fairly adjudicate success, failure or otherwise. We will obviously play the short-term adversarial politics in here, but that is our difficulty. We have no long-term strategies in place to ensure there will be a reward for those in the next generation. We look at who votes and who will reward a political party for the policies it pursues. That makes for a very short-sighted outlook in terms of what parties want to pursue in government. That is not a criticism of this Government, but an observation based on my 20 years in this place. It is very much focused on the electoral cycle. Many vulnerable people and communities are forgotten about in the meantime. Because they do not vote, they are not engaged. They are disenfranchised and disillusioned and we throw them the odd sop every now and again to appease our consciences and make us feel better. That does not really have a meaningful impact on their lives.

I make those points because we are discussing a Social Welfare Bill. Social welfare is primarily a way of ensuring that people get support when they need it. There must be something more, however, than just giving them the few bob and hoping they will not cause any problems. There must be something extra in it. Rights, responsibilities, opportunities, hope and inspiration are all critical components of that. However, the heart has been ripped out of communities and there is a fractured society out there. That is something we will live to regret. I thought "Strumpet City", where we had slums and deprivation and people saw no hope and no outcome in life, was in the past but we are fast reverting back to a situation in which whole communities feel absolutely alienated from every day discourse. They do not see this place as relevant to their lives. More often than not, they see it as an imposition and as a far-flung establishment. This is not the establishment, it is meant to be the parliamentary assembly for everybody out there. It should be a mirror image of our communities and we should have all sorts of people here reflecting what is happening in the community out there. However, when large groups of people see this place at a distance beyond belief from their lives we have major problems. Appeasing for the sake of it is not good enough. There must be direct action.

We are almost ghettoising people. I have had this issue with the local authority in Cork city for many years. We always lived with each other, helped each other and supported each other. It was something that was inherently ingrained in Irish society. Now, however, we put people in various areas according to their incomes and backgrounds. That is wrong. Local authorities have a critically important role to play in this regard. People need to see potential social mobility and that a young kid who comes from a difficult background can go to school, take the opportunities and, with the encouragement of parents and the community, move to third level and achieve something. However, I can show the Minister of State areas in which that would be a pipe dream. People simply do not see it as an obvious route to improving themselves because it is not done by anybody else in the community. We have schemes in place to assist people to go back to education and pathways to further education, but we must accept first and foremost what are the underlying problems. I do not know what the solution is but the problem is there in front of us and we seem too busy or disinterested to address it.

Various political parties claim to represent varying groupings. The simplistic view is that one is either on the left or the right. I am pro-business. Rewarding enterprise and encouraging initiative is critically important, but I also consider that 700 homeless people is anathema to the republic. In that, we have failed. We talk about big business and have press conferences and releases about its importance. Some people think that is great while others see it as the enemy of the person who does not have a job. I see them as compatible. The simplistic idea that one is either left wing or right wing and either has a social conscience or is for big business is something I am still trying get my head around. The bottom line is that our society must be nurtured back to life to ensure that every person can live to the maximum of their abilities, exploit their potential and seize opportunities. The Minister of State knows the communities in question. There are many of them out there and they are yearning for something to be done to ensure they can achieve something themselves.

The idea is that the Social Welfare Bill is debated here every year and we say people were not given enough and the Government says it would like to give more. If I was over there, the shoe would be on the other foot and I would be listening to the same thing from somebody on this side in respect of funding and supports. Overall, however, this place is not relevant to many citizens. If they are aware of it, they see it as a place we come to to make fine speeches and the perception is that we are all drawing big salaries. That is something we must fix very quickly. It is not because of what happened here last Thursday or what happened in Jobstown on Saturday with the Tánaiste. I thought about all of this in advance of those particular incidents, but they highlight something and are worth taking note of.

Homelessness is now reaching crisis proportions. I remember many years ago during the so-called Celtic tiger that we were condemned because 40 people were homeless in our capital city of a night. We had all the resources available to us and nobody should have been homeless. We now have 700 people of all ages and backgrounds searching for accommodation in the city. They are people who up until recently had homes and worked every hour God sent to put roofs over their heads. They now find themselves in that position. I do not care what legislative obstacles are in place, it undermines the confidence of people in the State's capacity to look after its most vulnerable citizens that we cannot provide them with the basics of elementary shelter.

This brings me back to the issue of priorities and my point about left- and right-wing policies and being pro-business or promoting social solidarity. There is no getting away from the fact that the Government made choices. Governments must prioritise and make choices, even in the most difficult times. The most recent budget sent out a signal that this Government was pursuing regressive policies and undermining social cohesiveness. The balance has been tipped. One hundred and fifty thousand people do not take to the streets on a wet Saturday for the craic. Many of those who marched against water charges recently did so because they have been put to the pin of their collar. They do not expect the Government to produce a magic wand. What they want is for politicians to at least appreciate and empathise with the financial difficulties and burdens they face daily. People are realistic and are aware of the challenges the Government faces and the difficult decisions it must take but they want it to at least listen to the message they are sending about the impact of Government policies, some of which I supported. We must listen to citizens because they are hurting after seven years of austerity. No one expects a miracle but people want the Government and parliamentarians on all sides to accept that enough is enough and they cannot give any more. The Government's priorities and its policies on taxation have focused too much on the haves and ignored the have-nots.

As I stated, we should always try to reward initiative and encourage enterprise. For this reason, it is impossible to justify the manner in which Governments have treated one group in the past six or seven years. I refer to the self-employed, who generated their own income, paid their taxes, did not rely on the State and, in some cases, employed others. When the economy fell off the cliff they were thrown to the wolves. Every Deputy has raised cases involving self-employed people who visited their local community welfare offices to beg for a few bob for Christmas. The poor treatment of the self-employed sends out a signal that risk-takers may reap the rewards when things go well but will be ignored and treated as pariahs and nuisances when things do not go well. This issue must be addressed, because if we want to encourage people to lift themselves up, we must assure them that some type of safety harness will be provided if they fail and that they will not be allowed to fall to the bottom.

With the next general election due to be held within 18 months, the Oireachtas is on an election footing and political parties are positioning themselves in anticipation. In recent years the basic principles of parliamentary democracy have been undermined, with the result that people no longer believe a word uttered by any politician. While everyone understands the need for political dexterity and the reasons for the odd political pirouette or U-turn, there is something inherently wrong when people no longer believe anything uttered by a politician. The core principles of democracy are undermined when debates are essentially games of one-upmanship. Parties should stand by their election manifestos. If they are accepted by the electorate, that is fine, and if they are rejected, that should be the end of the matter. We can no longer tolerate the idea that a party can pull a second set of principles from its pocket if the electorate does not like the first set. The single overriding factor is that people believe all politicians are the same. We used to hear that the two main parties were identical, but people now believe we are all the same, which is an inherently dangerous position. We have much to do to ensure that people feel part of society and are enfranchised, empowered and inspired. They need to believe there are opportunities for social mobility and to better one's self. The State must focus its resources on achieving these objectives, rather than becoming fixated on short-term policies and the results of focus groups. A strategic approach to constructing society in the years ahead is lacking.

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