A balanced society

The excellent article on Irish society, which is reprinted here, appears in today's Irish Times.

Radical changes needed to create balanced society

Facing into the downturn, we need to recognise the links between the economic, the social, the environmental and the personal, writes Fr Seán Healy

RADICAL CHANGE is required if Government is to build a fair and inclusive society that promotes the wellbeing of all. The most important change required is to recognise that the basic development framework followed in recent decades is fundamentally flawed and is not capable of delivering a sustainable future for everyone.

Government must recognise the complementarity of the economic, social and environmental dimensions of development. Economic development is crucial if the required social development is to be put in place.

At the same time, however, it should also be recognised that the economy requires good social services and infrastructure if it is to develop to its full potential.

Ireland's economic growth since the early 1990s has been dramatic. Wealth, employment and production have grown steadily. This growth has been held up by most commentators as a key indicator of progress.

Continuing on this path is seen as the way to building a society that will see everyone having access to the good life, having all that is required to live life with dignity, being happy. Commentary on the recent slowdown in the growth rate and the global economic recession focuses for the most part on the need to ensure that Ireland positions itself effectively to take advantage of the economic growth that is expected in the medium term.

This approach is in danger of failing to recognise that a holistic world view is required that recognises the complementarity of the economic, social and environmental dimensions of development and policy.

Ireland has failed to recognise this complementarity in the past. In the period 1997-2004, government followed an approach that emphasised economic growth. To summarise the approach of a prominent minister during that time, it was a matter of "giving people back their own money and allowing them to make their own choices on how to spend it. This approach would produce the best results for those individuals, for the economy and for society." Taxes were cut far in excess of what most people expected. As the economy was growing dramatically at the same time, helped greatly by a number of international developments, the Government's tax-take also grew.

People certainly had more money in their pockets, far more than they had expected. They spent much of this money on buying houses at exorbitant prices, taking foreign holidays, buying SUVs and a wide range of other activities.

However, these same people now find that the public transport is not in place where it is required. Neither are the schools, nor the broadband, nor the social houses, nor the primary healthcare teams, nor much of the rest of the social and economic infrastructure that one would expect to see in a society with Ireland's level of income and wealth. There was a failure to recognise that a thriving economy requires social development just as much as social development requires a thriving economy.

In the period since 2005, government has moved away from some aspects of this approach. Much more radical change is required, however. An alternative framework is needed to guide and underpin policy development in the period ahead.

This new framework should be built on the recognition of the complementarity of the economic, the social, the environmental and the personal. The relationships between each of these aspects need to be kept in balance, whether in the public policy arena or in people's own lives. In my recent presentation to the Humbert Summer School I was criticising policymakers and others who focus only on the economic dimension. I was not criticising economists (as claimed in The Irish Times headline on August 22nd).

If government were to follow a framework focused on developing balanced relationships, then here are some initiatives that government should take to meet the challenges it is facing at this moment:
Ensure that every person has sufficient resources to live life with dignity. This would involve tackling the two main groups at risk of poverty at present - the working poor (30 per cent of all households at risk of poverty), and those outside the labour force and totally depending on social welfare (50 per cent of all the households at risk of poverty);
Give priority to developing Ireland's economic and social infrastructure to bring these at least to the average level of the EU 15. In doing this it would be good to follow the principle of giving priority to initiatives that are both good for the economy and good for the vulnerable (eg meeting commitments on social housing);
Integrate the tax and welfare systems;
Recognise and support all work, not just paid employment;
Honour the social policy commitments in Towards 2016; and
Put sustainability (economic, social and environmental) at the core of policymaking.
A public debate is needed urgently around the issues of progress, paradigms and policy, around the future that is to be built and the choices to be made now if Ireland is to move towards that future.

Fr Seán Healy is director of Cori Justice, a branch of the Conference of Religious of Ireland. Cori Justice aims to play a leading role in the major public policy arenas on issues related to social justice, especially poverty, inequality, social exclusion, sustainability, migration and the environment.