Derek Nolan (Galway West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

First, I thank Deputies Maureen O'Sullivan and Donnelly and the Technical Group for tabling this motion, which is very good. It is rare that Members get the opportunity in the House to discuss something that really is about the fundamentals of who we are, how we allocate resources and how we have that discussion on who are the priorities and so on. As Deputy Donnelly will be aware - because we have discussed this previously - I have quite an interest in human rights, how they are implemented and how I perceive them playing their way in society. This motion is asking how to work in those universal human rights to which all Members have signed up and how should they be honoured and vindicated. It asks, as the language in legal texts would say, how should they be progressively realised and how can one ensure this is done in budgets. Consequently, I accept this is a good discussion to have. For instance, there is the argument that human rights and economic and social rights should be put into the Constitution, which they are at the moment, but by therefore making them legally binding. This is a genuine legal argument that takes place across Europe and is a matter for legal debate. I must admit I am not fully settled on it. One argument is that were one to so do, one first would be narrowing the pattern and the available space for democratic decision-making. For instance, if one states housing, health and education should be put as strict legal rights into the Constitution, someone who receives an electoral mandate from the people may be constricted and restricted in what he or she may be able to do. The argument is that one actually is placing the sovereign rights of the people possibly in abeyance or in conflict with the Constitution.

There is then, however, the issue of rights and the question of where one should do this. The motion before the House suggests questioning where do human rights come in when resources are being allocated. Before that point is reached, another value judgment would be to look at the market we operate in the State, at how resources are generated and how the resources actually come into play. The question is what should be those values. One would not be actually talking about how much money we have and how it should be spent in a rights context but about what policies we have at our heart that influence the markets, businesses and community around us that generate the wealth and then allow it to be distributed. This discussion is particularly important at present and I am delighted to discuss it, having come through seven years of absolute austerity and a really brutal time for the people and having seen what happened when free-market economics and light-touch regulation were the mainstream for the 14 years before that. It now matters what values we have in the economy and what values we have as a society. The first thing I would like to see in a value-based economy is that one would put workers at the heart of decision-making. I do not say this to be glib, as this actually means something. Over the years, it was not the work, it was speculation, who one knew, the golden circle, a clique and so forth that were making the decisions. Depending on to whom one listens, the economic priority should be business, it should be the most vulnerable - that is a phrase that has degraded public debate somewhat - it should be education and so on. However, for me the worker really should be at the heart of decision-making because one is talking about the man or woman who gets up every morning, brings the kids to school, gets out and works and creates the wealth that therefore allows us to do the nobler things in society that we wish to do. This is not what happened in the boom when we had what one might call a money-centred quick buck mentality. It was a time when the worth of someone's education and their endeavour as a human being by getting up every morning, going to work and producing was not what was important; it was how much was in one's pocket. The first thing that must be said is that those people who get up each morning to go to work must be at the centre of decision-making. This would require real action to implement and the Minister of State, Deputy Nash, who is sitting beside me, will lead the charge in this regard, because the Government will be talking about living wages and those kinds of things that really matter.

Having put the worker at the centre of the economy, the second thing is for Ireland as a State and as a people to get real about the social contract and to understand it. This also feeds into the motion because if one wishes to measure the economic and social rights as they are being vindicated, namely, education, health and so forth, unless we have a real and meaningful understanding of what are public services, how they are funded, what they mean in society and the central role they play, we will not be able to implement the rights about which we are talking. The reason I am in the Labour Party is that I am a social democrat and believe strongly that all people, no matter who they are, where they are from or what is their background, deserve the chance to prosper and thrive in society and not to be disabled by their backgrounds or their abilities. Ireland has never got to grips with a value judgment as to where we are. In the famous comment that Mary Harney made many years ago and which informed the debates, are we Boston or Berlin? Are we a low-tax, low-spending, no-service United States model or are we the Berlin model, which suggests each citizen has the right to participate? Until we, as a society, make that decision, the question will be whether we are going to resource our public services. Will we acknowledge that it costs money to provide the services? One cannot make election promises to increase spending and cut taxes at the same time or to rely on unsustainable revenues from an industry that will not last. This matters and it is difficult to bring the Irish psyche around to the proposition that perhaps one must pay for something such as a proper health service, without being vilified as almost being a communist. To get public support for this will require people like me, my party, people who are close to the trade union movement and those working in them to acknowledge that if they expect people to put in their money - for which they have gone out and worked - to provide the public services that are needed, those services must be efficient and must provide value for money. One must be able to state we can stand over the money as it is spent and that is why the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, while it is quite a technical and bureaucratic Department, and rightly so, plays its role in ensuring efficient public services, which allow us to provide the platform, the facilities and the institutions that can provide the human rights and their advancement that we wish to see in our society. While this may be an unexpected link, it certainly is not a tenuous one.

The third point I will make is that when people pay taxes and get back services, that is a social wage. It matters and is about getting something. It is about people's belief and confidence that the tax they pay is not simply taken and gone but is something that is in their pockets.

They also believe that it is spent on the health service and within the education sector. It is not wasted but rather it is pooled with those moneys paid by their fellow citizens in order to achieve something greater. The value judgment made in this regard must be brought into the public debate.

The fourth matter to which I wish to refer is also of value in the context of this debate. We are concerned here not just with the allocation of resources on a human rights basis but also with how those resources are generated. What happens in this regard comes down to the choices we make in the context of the market. Should we return to the previous model wherein the market values dominated moral values? I firmly believe that the decisions made in the past whereby issues relating to the housing bubble and the property market trumped the needs of couples who needed to buy homes were wrong. During the period to which I refer, someone who owned a few acres of land on the outskirts which was suddenly rezoned as a result of the desperate need for development land could become a millionaire overnight having contributed little or nothing in terms of productive value. This was perfectly acceptable and it allowed market values to trump a real social and economic need, namely, the right to housing. As a result of that to which I refer, couples were saddled with enormous debts. This is another example of human rights being subverted in the interests of the market and it is an area in respect of which we need to say that a rights-based approach to policy making really can have an impact on citizens and on their experience vis-à-visthe State.

I am of the view that my final point will accord with many of the proposals put forward by Deputies Maureen O'Sullivan and Donnelly. A report compiled for the French Government by Stiglitz, Sen and Fitoussi states that measuring an economy on the basis of GNP, GDP, debt ratios, deficits and so on will provide an indication of the economic outlook but it will not provide information on the well-being, fitness for purpose or happiness of citizens. If society is only measured on those bases, a state will never be in a position to progress the value of a person's experience, improve his or her family life or reduce the amount of time her or she spends commuting in his or her car. Neither will it be able to discover whether parents can bring their children to the cinema on a Friday evening. These are issues with matter to people and which are of value in the context of enhancing their family life. A great deal of work has been done in this regard and I am of the view that we, as a nation, should be examining the issues to which I refer in order that we might remeasure how we define progress. Information on growth rates, national wealth and public debt do not indicate how well the nation, families and individual citizens are doing. I am of the view that the considerations to which I refer really do matter.

I thank the members of the Technical Group for putting forward the motion. This is a particularly important and valuable debate and I am glad to have had the opportunity to contribute to it.

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