Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan for tabling this timely motion. It gives us the space to consider what should happen into the future and just as importantly how it should happen. We need to make it happen because it will not happen on its own. Too often we have been a hostage to the past and present when we need to be aspiring to something far better in the future. Equality or a more equal society is actually very good for us. If we start with that premise, everything else starts to fall into place. We have long way to go. First, we collectively need to accept that is what is needed. Second, we need to look at where we are. Based on the data from Towards a Second Republic, a book published two years ago, Ireland is one of the most unequal countries in the world behind the United States, Russia and Mexico. Ireland is an outlier within the European Union - we are the third worst in the EU 27 when it comes to equality.

We are one of the worst performers in the amount of money we spend on education, which is the route out of poverty for so many people. At one of the worst points in history in the middle of the Second World War, William Beveridge had the visionary idea of a welfare state and was able to bring people with him on that journey. That is the kind of thinking we need to have at this point. There is no point in coming out of a crisis just to exist to pay bills and pay back debts that we should never have incurred and were never ours in the first place. We need to have a vision for something that is much bigger and better - a more equal society.

The Spirit Levelis a book by two very capable professionals who both did their PhDs on the subject. Their findings showed that equality is very good for society. More equal societies have better health and lower crime rates. In more equal societies people are more interested in a more egalitarian and inclusive society rather than one in which people wish to dominate.

We are approaching the centenary of the 1916 Rising and we need to use that as an opportunity to consider where we were then, where we are now and where we want to be in the future. It would be a wasted opportunity if we just commemorate that as a point in history and do not use it to define some vision for the future, and not only define a vision for the future but actually consider how to get there. The word "how" is incredibly important because it is not possible to have leadership without using the word "how".

The terms of the motion provide a way for us to look at the money that is available to us and see how that measures against inequality in society. We then need to decide how to spend that in a way that produces a more equal society that is better for us all in the long run. It will be a missed opportunity if we do not do that. I am disappointed that the Government did not accept the motion and use it as that opportunity. If we are to emerge out of this crisis, we need to emerge in a better place. I heard much of that being said before the last general election, but I have not seen anything from the Government that gives me any kind of encouragement that this is what is intended. Its objective is merely to survive the crisis, do the bookkeeping and talk about targets with no real vision driving it into the future. That is an awful wasted opportunity.

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