Aideen Hayden (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I also welcome Mr. Begg to the Chamber and thank him for an excellent and thought-provoking contribution. I have a page of scribbles before me so I will try to confine myself to two questions relating to models of welfare. Mr. Begg mentioned the failure in Ireland in the initial years of the 20th century to build consensus across the entirety of society. To what extent would Mr. Begg attribute that to the urban-rural divide that resulted from the land wars in the early 20th century? For example, the 1913 housing inquiry was mentioned, along with the plight of Dublin workers in particular in the tenements. At the same time vast quantities of Irish land had been transferred to smallholdings, and it has been suggested this provoked a spirit of conservatism in the country. With regard to the failure to build consensus with urban workers, the agricultural rural labourers had housing needs met as part of the protest around the land wars in rural Ireland, although there was no similar consensus around the need to deal with people in urban Ireland, including Waterford and other cities and large urban areas.

This type of dominance of the concerns of rural Ireland, according to Professor Tom Garvin, brought a certain style of politics into the country, particularly up to the 1960s. This can be seen in small ways, as the children of smallholders in rural Ireland had higher participation rates in education than the children of workers due to the supports given to smallholders in particular. There was also a role for the Church, particularly in the 1920s, when there was a fear of Bolshevism. To what extent was the model of welfare influenced by the urban-rural divide?

A second question relates to the more modern model of welfare that is emerging in the world at large. I am referring specifically to the world economic crisis and the impact of globalisation. Mr. Begg mentioned the issue of transferring risk from the State to the individual. In both the developed European world and in the emerging economies of south-east Asia, housing, in particular, has been used as a way of providing what is known as "asset-based welfare". In other words, individuals would be able to pay for their own needs, particularly those which arise as populations age across the world. The idea is that people have the assets to pay for their own needs in old age. Even in Sweden - one of the countries regarded as being among the most equal in the world - they travelled down that path.

In spite of the world financial crisis and a lack of regulation - I believe there was international collusion among governments in this lack of regulation and the promotion of asset-based welfare - to what extent can societies deal with problems, given the mobility of capital in the modern world? It is very difficult to guarantee excellent jobs when the mobility of capital is such a major factor in the equation.