Address at the Crosscare Conference Action for Justice 2012
Dublin, 28th February 2012
Thank you for the invitation to address your conference today and your warm welcome. I'm delighted to be here at this important occasion in All Hallows College. I would like to thank the chairperson of Crosscare, Frank O’Connell, and the director, Conor Hickey, for inviting me to address your important and timely conference Action for Justice 2012. I would like to acknowledge the presence of Most Reverend Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin and patron of Crosscare and to thank Fr. McDevitt for his kind welcome to All Hallows College. I am especially glad of the opportunity to talk to the wide range of talents that serve in Crosscare including staff, volunteers, and board of management.
First, I want to acknowledge the tremendous work that Crosscare is doing right now for people and communities on the margins of society in the greater Dublin Area. I salute the valuable work of Crosscare and recognize the contribution of your staff and volunteers. I greatly value of the work of Crosscare and the positive impact it has on the lives of people who are experiencing extreme difficulties because of the economic crisis. It is clear that your work with marginalized groups and local communities is more vital than ever.
Important anniversaries are worth celebrating. They point us to origins, they recall foundational values and they energise us to engage with the present and impact on the future. It is entirely appropriate that your 70th year celebrations should therefore have this important day of reflection and renewal; linking the long tradition of service with the challenges of the present day and also linking the efforts and energies of your staff, volunteers and supporters with the broader questions about justice and solidarity which are so pressing at this time.
For we do face a most profound challenge. It is not just economic. It is not just about unemployment. It is not just about restoring fiscal stability. It is about the collapse of trust and confidence. It is about the shock of realising that so much of what was taken for granted as the backdrop to the lives, careers and futures of so many people was built on sand.
We are now about renewing our Republic by reaffirming the values which bind us together as a community; recasting our institutions and our structures to serve the people; and finding a new model to guide our economic and social development. This is not about fixing something which was broken. It is about finding something new and durable that links the policies and programmes of the civil authorities; the energies and efforts of our enterprise sector; the rich diversity of communities, networks and organisations which make up Irish civil society; and do it all in a way which affirms and respects the dignity of each citizen and underlines their rights and responsibilities.
This is no mere technical task. The task of transformation is a challenging one but rich in its rewards and promise. As the theme of your conference firmly suggests, it is about imagination, passion and belief, as well as praxis. It needs and demands the contribution of every citizen, every community, every parish, every business, every school, every college, just as much as it requires the fresh thinking and dedication of political leaders, public officials and the expertise of the full range of specialist knowledge.
In contemplating the scale of this challenge there is courage to be drawn from reflecting on the origins of Crosscare, formerly the Catholic Social Service Conference. It was established so as to address the most difficult social and economic conditions at the height of what was called The Emergency. It set out to create a coherent and sophisticated network of social provision to cater for the needs of the people of Dublin. This task was approached against the backdrop of the long tradition of direct social provision by the Catholic Church, its religious congregations and its then numerous clergy and religious, in fields of education, healthcare and social care.
It was expected as a matter of course that the public authorities would support these initiatives – as they did – but that it was not primarily their responsibility to address this need. The fact is that the resources of the State at that time would not have extended to the scale of ambition for the supply of social services which was embodied in Archbishop McQuaid’s plan. The reality is that the practical well-being of thousands of people was significantly enhanced by this voluntary provision in a way that could not, at that time, have been achieved from very scarce public resources.
The impulse behind all of this activity was undoubtedly charitable and well-meaning and it achieved much good. However, many commentators reviewing the record of provision by the church across the broad range of social services have remarked on the highly pragmatic character of that endeavour. It was a practical and urgent response to an immediate need. There is a curious lack of impact on broader social policy, on models of social organisation, even in terms of basic social analysis for much of this period. I recall the late John McGahern’s phrase that it was the tragedy of Ireland that it felt it had to choose between the family and the State when it needed both.
Coincidentally, this year also marks the 70th anniversary of another social service initiative: the publication of the Beveridge Report in Britain. This forward-looking and appealing vision of a post-war society organised to secure full employment, comprehensive and effective income support in times of crisis, a national health service and unparalleled access to education, was to lay the foundations of the post-war Welfare State. Small wonder, then, that the Beveridge Report sold in its hundreds of thousands. British people queued in the streets to buy copies - demonstration, if it were needed, that people are hugely interested in ideas about society and the future and respond enthusiastically when presented with convincing ideas against a backdrop of challenge and hardship. It seemed that poverty and deprivation, exclusion and inequality had been recognized and could be eliminated. The taste of reconstruction had created a consensus that was built on solidarity and community. Inequality, however, like nettles, is difficult to eliminate.
It is interesting to compare the boldness of the vision of Beveridge in setting forth a framework for comprehensive economic and social reconstruction through public policy on the one hand and the boldness of the Dublin Archdiocese in launching its ambitious practical project to address the immediate problems of the day in Ireland from a very different but ethical and worthy perspective.
The Beveridge Report, of course, attracted considerable attention here and there was a significant and sometimes animated public debate about the shape which social provision should take in the future. This was followed by ambitious institutional and policy reform but far removed from the vision of Beveridge. The essentially agrarian model of the Irish economy, based on the non-commercial family farm, confounded the premise on which a Beveridge-style approach might be built. Ireland had become a property-based society and this would be reflected in the choice of, and reaction to, social policy initiatives.
Today is not the day for a long analysis of the history of the Welfare State, its triumphs and failures. However, I think it is fair to say that the very considerable expansion in social spending by Governments in Ireland as elsewhere has achieved much, but has not eliminated core problems of under-provision, uncertain outcomes, variable performance, the persistence of poverty and inequality across the generations. These problems and challenges were evident long before the current economic crisis. Indeed, the Kilkenny Conference of 1974 had its conclusions described in the media as ‘the discovery of poverty’.
But the crisis deepens the challenge and increases the urgency of finding pathways forward through public policy, social redistribution, personal responsibility and communal solidarity, towards a social vision worthy of our Republic and its founders.
In that challenge, organisations like Crosscare and the faith community from which it draws its support have an important role to play.
I have written before about how most of the genuinely progressive changes we have seen in Ireland over the years have been made possible by those who followed that generous and courageous instinct of the heart which tells us to reach out to others and to respect their essential dignity. That is the spirit which animates those who work with Crosscare and so many other voluntary organisations. A society is rich which enjoys that sense of purpose, initiative and solidarity which brings citizens together.
But our times require more than action and impulse. They require reflection, deliberation and planning. They require both the pragmatic drive that delivered the Catholic Social Conference and the inspiring vision that gave us the Beveridge Report. They require the practical engagement of people across the many areas of service reflected in your topics for discussion today. But they also require a teasing out of the ethical philosophy through social analysis which should guide our efforts.
I am happy to salute today the contribution to debate in the public realm inspired by the modern corpus of Catholic social thought. The progressive vision represented by the emphasis at its core of the dignity of the human person, the importance of participation, the necessity for solidarity and the overriding importance of the common good - complemented by the imperative of a preferential option for the poor - are progressive and valuable insights, indeed as its opposition to war was admirable.
Such a vision is no tame recipe for quiet conformity to establishment thinking. On the contrary, it is a potentially subversive and unsettling challenge to many aspects of what had passed for conventional wisdom until recently. Above all, it challenges the vision of the human person at the heart of neo-classical economics, which equates the value of each person with what they consume and therefore what they earn. This pernicious but pervasive approach has come close to robbing the human person in public policy of all that makes them human.
So an inspiring social philosophy and the witness of faithful service to many of the most disadvantaged in our community provide a very fitting basis for your gathering today to reflect on how Crosscare can contribute to the promotion of justice in the Ireland which is coming into being out of this period of crisis. Creating a truly just society necessarily involves a critique of, as well as an advocacy on, public policy, public expenditure and public programmes. These require to be renewed and re-imagined, not just so that they become affordable, but so that they become more effective in achieving their goals.
The challenge is to create what has been called a Developmental Welfare State, comprising the three overlapping areas of services, income supports and activist or innovative measures, joined up in ways that enable individuals, families, communities and the economy to undergo balanced development. Increasingly, these need to be tailored to the complex and multi-faceted needs of individuals and communities. This will only be possible if we keep the needs and experiences of citizens at the heart of our planning and delivery.
That of course must begin with understanding their lived experience, and hearing their voice as they tell the story of their lives and aspirations.
It is clear that community-based and non-profit organisations have a particular role to play in helping to understand how new ways can be found to address the needs of families and communities. The voluntary sector is also crucial in identifying those who fall between the cracks that so easily open up between established policies and programmes.
Groups like Crosscare have a vital role to play in putting your experience and insights at the service of the wider community. Too much of the social reality of our time is hidden from view, ignored by the mainstream channels of public communication and defined as not being relevant to the task of national economic recovery. This is especially true of those who live at the margin of our society. Awareness of their very existence is often dependent on committed advocates whose life and work calls the wider society to awareness and to action.
A vital work of justice for Crosscare, I suggest, is to be such advocates - to witness to that reality of injustice and marginalization; and to point to the practical measures which can make a difference. But your purpose in meeting today goes beyond specific needs, to the task of reshaping our culture, to move beyond what I have called the corrosive individualism of recent years. The progressive social philosophy which underpins your work has huge potential to contribute to developing a new citizenship built on equality; valuing solidarity; and rooted in caring. It is, in short, about the struggle to place and maintain the common good at the heart of our thinking and action as citizens, and as the inspiration and focus of our public policies.
In my public life and in my writing, and now in my role as Head of State, I have been driven by the conviction that ideas and creativity are two of the most democratic and transformative forces we have, and that they are available to all our citizens. Our history shows that people and communities of faith can make a profound contribution under the inspiration of their beliefs and values.
The failings and scandals with which we are all familiar have weakened the moral authority of many who represent that tradition. It is widely recognised, including within the Church itself, that such authority can be accorded again only in the light of actions that truly embody those beliefs, values and convictions. Organisations like Crosscare have the potential to reconnect action and belief in an authentic witness to ideas and values which deserve to be heard and respected.
I trust that your deliberations to-day, and the action which will follow, will fire your determination and focus your creative energies to meet this challenge. In rising to this challenge, you can and should take a lot of heart and encouragement from Crosscare’s proud record of 70 years of generous and effective service to the most disadvantaged people of Dublin.