Government policies have linked social and economic objectives

The scale and pace of recent change in our society and economy has been unprecedented. Serious reflection on where we've come from, where we are and where we're going to is always welcome. Unfortunately public debate rarely strays beyond rhetorically impressive but ultimately shallow soundbites and the social policy equivalent of the "politics of the last atrocity".

Politicians have not been alone in this; journalists have played their full part.

It is in this context that the commitment of the Irish Times to a five-part series by Maev-Ann Wren was very welcome. Unfortunately, I believe the series ended up being based on a crude caricature of Government policy and was casually dismissive of a wide range of perspectives which should have been addressed.

A serious debate requires a serious treatment of all positions and the ultimate thrust of the articles was selective advocacy rather than balanced evaluation. To rephrase yesterday's headline, how far will the media go in distorting the facts in the interests of a good story?

Fact: unemployment has fallen from 12 per cent in 1996 to under 5 per cent today, lower than the level in the EU and lower than the UK.

Fact: long-term unemployment has fallen from 7 per cent in 1996 to 2.1 per cent today - the vicious cycle of intergenerational unemployment has been well and truly broken.

Fact: consistent poverty, as measured by the ESRI, has fallen significantly, from 15 per cent to under 10 per cent of the population and we have set a target of halving this by 2004.

Fact: Public expenditure of social services has increased significantly in the last decade in real terms (as measured by the National Economic and Social Council).

In my experience as a practising politician, people from all shades of the political spectrum accept that we are much better off as a society than we were five or 10 years ago. And people are glad of this.

The series of articles levelled many charges against the Government but showed a lack of knowledge of a range of policy initiatives designed specifically to achieve sustainable economic and social progress. There was no reference to the Taoiseach's recent speech where he outlined the Government's approach on this area, and our commitment to eliminate poverty.

Both the National Development Plan and Programme for Prosperity and Fairness were overwhelmingly ignored and issues of context and consensus were rarely addressed.

The NDP and the PPF are explicit in linking social and economic development. This national plan is the first to include funding for areas such as childcare, schools, equality programmes and hospitals at the core of a multi-annual development programme. The PPF addresses most of the issues which were presented in the articles as being ignored by a Government motivated by an "explicit ideology" of growth at any cost.

It has become very easy to say that whatever government is in power will follow the same policies. This is simply not true. The policies followed by the Fianna Fail government in 1987 marked a significant departure from the Fine Gael/Labour government and created the foundation for today's success. The first partnership agreement in 1987 was opposed by all other parties then in the Dail. Significant changes in public policy were implemented by Fianna Fail-led governments since 1987 - changes which were largely maintained by the rainbow coalition government.

The articles fail to recognise any social progress whatsoever in the last decade. During most of my political life the overwhelming public issues were mass unemployment and emigration. Now that these are gone, this is apparently of little or no importance.

As I outlined above, there has been a very significant decline in those living in consistent poverty in the Republic. This means the numbers who experienced the enforced absence of basic things such as a decent diet have fallen and are falling. This is what really counts.

As Prof Brian Nolan of the ESRI said in a recent paper: "I suspect that when deprivation is falling markedly, many people may not simply regard an increase in the numbers falling below a relative income line as an unambiguous increase in poverty."

I fully agree with Prof Nolan and I suspect that most people would as well.

The articles completely ignored very significant improvements across the full range of public services. In education, for example, there were 150,000 primary-school pupils in classes of over 40 in 1979. The average class size is below 25 this year because of a policy of recruiting extra teachers. This replaced an attempt in the last government's 1997 Budget to cut teacher numbers - on top of their freeze in school funding.

Ours is the first Government to produce an integrated plan to tackle disadvantage at all levels of our education system, yet the articles accuse us of ignoring the issue in our "blind rush for economic growth".

In my own area, the increases we have implemented in pension levels, for example, have been well ahead of both inflation and earnings and we have extended a number of important secondary benefits - crucial to helping older people avoid poverty.

I challenge anybody to describe these improvements as confirming to the type of ideology described in the articles.

In relation to the issue of overall spending levels, it is curious that we are simultaneously being attacked for not spending enough and for being inflationary by spending too much. We believe it is possible to both cut taxes and invest in improving public services, and we are doing so in a balanced and sustainable manner. No member of this Government has ever said, or implied, that tax is theft - but we emphatically reject the idea that the height of your tax rates is a measure of your social concern.

Reference to percentages of GNP and GDP levels have long since been established as being significantly less useful in this country than others. As indicated in a recent report from the OECD, a range of factors have to be taken into account - including the low proportion of older people in our society and our stage in the economic cycle.

Our concern must be for the level and quality of the service, something that cruder measures don't address.

Of course, we as a society have many problems, and those that have materialised because of growth are important - but attempts to deny the significance of undoubted progress on employment, social services and inclusion only serve to undermine our collective ability to protect what has worked for us and build a realistic agenda for the future. Through the NDP and PPF we are the first Government to put in place a credible long-term set of proposals for sustainable economic and social development.

Does the Irish model exist? Well only one week ago, the Taoiseach and I, speaking at a Combat Poverty Agency conference on Planning for an Inclusive Society, committed the Government to ending poverty in our society.

That's the Irish social model. One based on sharing the benefits of our economic success and ensuring that everybody has the opportunity and the incentive to contribute to and share in our growth.

Dermot Ahern is Minister for Social, Community and Family Affairs