A FAIR SOCIETY REQUIRES COMPROMISE

New Blog by Bren­dan Ogle.
This week we had an emer­gency debate on a vote of no con­fi­dence in the Min­is­ter respon­si­ble for that emer­gency, Eoghan Mur­phy. Just days before we had four by-elec­tions where bare­ly one quar­ter of the elec­torate both­ered turn­ing up, so four new TD’S took part in the debate. I watched Tuesday’s debate live. Amid all the the­atrics and fin­ger point­ing this much was clear: the Gov­ern­ment believe the free mar­ket is the only way to pro­vide hous­ing, even on pub­lic land.

IN THIS REGARD IT IS OUR GOVERNMENT WHO ARE ‘EXTREMISTS’

Did you know that 5% of renters pay 75% of their total income to their land­lord? This is one, just one, of an extra­or­di­nary array of sta­tis­tics linked to our hous­ing and home­less emer­gency.

This week we had an emer­gency debate on a vote of no con­fi­dence in the Min­is­ter respon­si­ble for that emer­gency, Eoghan Mur­phy. Just days before we had four by-elec­tions where bare­ly one quar­ter of the elec­torate both­ered turn­ing up, so four new TD’S took part in the debate. I watched Tuesday’s debate live. Amid all the the­atrics and fin­ger point­ing this much was clear: the Gov­ern­ment believe the free mar­ket is the only way to pro­vide hous­ing, even on pub­lic land. They are wed­ded to that ide­ol­o­gy, see noth­ing at all wrong with it, and even think it’s ‘car­ing’. The Government’s def­i­n­i­tion of ‘car­ing’ is best encap­su­lat­ed by Min­is­ter Regi­na O’Doherty who thinks it is ‘car­ing’ to refuse to award a 10c increase (yes 10 cents, it’s not a mis­print) to our low­est min­i­mum wages work­ers in a city where apart­ments cost­ing €300,000 are described by Gov­ern­ment as ‘afford­able’.

That posi­tion is not car­ing. Rather it is an extrem­ist posi­tion lack­ing in com­pas­sion or com­pro­mise.

I have just come from the launch of the ‘Jesuit Cen­tre for Faith & Jus­tice (JCFJ)’ strate­gic plan for 2019–2023. I am not a reli­gious per­son but I like to think I am a com­pas­sion­ate one, and the Jesuit’s do fan­tas­tic work here in the areas of social jus­tice and inequal­i­ty. They are not extrem­ists. They are real­ists in social and eco­nom­ic terms. Their plan focus­es in on the three key areas of Hous­ing, Cli­mate Action and Penal Reform and their cham­pi­on is Fr. Peter McVer­ry. In his address ear­li­er he made ref­er­ence to the report being a ‘cri­tique with­out fear of los­ing Gov­ern­ment fund­ing because we don’t get any.’ This was more than just a quip, and every­body present knew it.

Yes­ter­day the Chief Exec­u­tive of the ‘Peter McVer­ry Trust’, which does rely on sub­stan­tial Gov­ern­ment fund­ing, made what I still con­sid­er to be ill-advised com­ments about the polit­i­cal debate the pre­vi­ous night, basi­cal­ly say­ing that chang­ing the Hous­ing Min­is­ter would have been point­less. When Apol­lo House was order to be closed by the High Court in Jan­u­ary 2017 the same Trust, and Dublin City Coun­cil too, swore affi­davits in Court that there were enough beds in Dublin City then for all home­less peo­ple. Those oaths looked ridicu­lous then, and they look even more ridicu­lous now. They were sim­ply untrue. But what sort of extrem­ist Gov­ern­ment requires such unques­tion­ing com­pli­ance from emer­gency ser­vice providers like these in order to ensure the pro­vi­sion of essen­tial fund­ing streams for our most vul­ner­a­ble?

Of course cit­i­zens shouldn’t require ‘char­i­ty’ or emer­gency ser­vices for a roof over their heads.  That notion in itself is the man­i­fes­ta­tion of Fine Gaels’ extreme polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy. Basic decen­cy, fair­ness and the con­cept of ‘soci­ety’ should be enough. One of this morning’s speak­ers was JCFJ’S Kevin Har­gaden who not­ed that ‘it has been decades since the wealthy have car­ried such a light load’ and that it was as a result of this fact that ‘social ser­vices have been dev­as­tat­ed’.

Kevin also point­ed out what should be obvi­ous but is often lost in the cas­cade of extrem­ist and divi­sive Gov­ern­ment poli­cies, and the clam­our of their apol­o­gists in the ide­o­log­i­cal sect that is Irish media – ‘pover­ty is not a nat­ur­al dis­as­ter’. Indeed it is not. Every­thing we see on our streets now, that we wit­ness every day, is the result of a polit­i­cal choice. We are a rich coun­try, a very rich coun­try. Yet our streets are strewn with human suf­fer­ing, degra­da­tion and eco­nom­ic iso­la­tion. It’s bru­tal in its con­tempt for ordi­nary peo­ple.

I learned this morn­ing too that 75% of the occu­pants of our pris­ons are suf­fer­ing from addic­tion, and of course there are only a small num­ber of assis­tance pro­grammes avail­able. Where they exist they only do so to save Gov­ern­ment blush­es, as opposed to any sin­cere effort to stop the anes­the­sia of those who our Gov­ern­ment are con­tent to aban­don to the fringes of ‘recov­ery Ire­land’.

EXTREMISM

We now live in a coun­try where those who believe a roof over their heads is a human right and social need, where those who want a liv­ing wage, who seek tax jus­tice, who expect a health ser­vice that pro­vides ser­vices based on need as opposed to wealth are treat­ed as the ‘extrem­ists’. And yet a Gov­ern­ment that is pre­sid­ing over the worst hous­ing emer­gency since the famine, that allows employ­ment abus­es that are so bad some go back to the days of slav­ery (I have the records and real life tes­ti­monies in my office) and which is wil­ful­ly steal­ing our children’s youth and hopes for basic needs to be met in the future claim to be, and are allowed get away with describ­ing them­selves as ‘hold­ing the cen­tre’.

No.

They are not. They are the extrem­ists. They and their bul­ly­ing, arro­gant greed, their self­ish pan­der­ing to their rich pay­mas­ters, their reck­less­ness with our tax­es and their non-col­lec­tion of much more, their sociopa­thy which is now bor­der­ing on psy­chopa­thy, and their care­less delu­sion of com­pas­sion. The car­nage which is now the lived expe­ri­ence of far too many is a result of Gov­ern­ment extrem­ism. But enough from me. Peter McVer­ry, in the best let­ter I have ever seen print­ed in The Irish Times, sums up the extrem­ism best:

‘Sir, – I attend­ed court with a young home­less boy who had been charged with theft of a bot­tle of orange, val­ue $1.

Anoth­er home­less man was charged with theft of four bars of choco­late, val­ue €3.

Anoth­er home­less man was charged with theft of tow pack­ets of Silk Cut cig­a­rettes.

A TD, on his way to, or from, his full-time, very well paid job in Brus­sels, stops by at Dail Eire­ann to sign in, so that he can col­lect his full €51,600 expens­es for his atten­dance in the Dail. – Yours, etc.

Fr PETER Mc Ver­ry SJ

Jesuit Cen­tre for Faith and Jus­tice’

ENDS