Madam, – May I congratulate Dr Garret FitzGerald for his insightful and timely article (“Apocalypse may spark the rebirth of civic morality”, Opinion, October 16th). I believe many of your readers would agree with his analysis of the reasons leading to the current sorry state of the country. The point now is to decide what to do to recover from the “apocalypse” referred to in the heading.
Should we sit and wait to see if a saviour emerges from within our political system or should we take the necessary steps to fix the problem in a more creative manner? Asking our elected representatives to vote for the type of significant changes necessary to fix the issues of confidence, lack of trust and general apathy caused by decades of clientelism and corrupt practice would be a huge stretch. Instead we ought to demand our Government and all Opposition parties come together, agree to dissolve the Dáil and as a last action appoint qualified private sector specialists to run the various departments as a business.
We could have the cream of our business community thus running the country and guiding us through the difficulties we surely face for the next several years. – Yours, etc,
A chara, – In his article on the possible rebirth of civic morality (Opinion, October 16th), Garret FitzGerald makes a very broad charge: “They [the Catholic bishops] were blocked by de Valera in 1937 when, in drawing up his new Constitution, he refused to make Ireland a Catholic state. This underlying stand-off between church and State – the subtleties of which are little understood by the present generation – seems to have inhibited the Irish Catholic Church from advocating civic responsibility or from addressing issues of civic morality. Instead, all its energies were concentrated on aspects of sexual morality . . .”
This charge about the Irish Catholic Church concentrating all its energies on sexual morality does not reflect the facts. Clearly, the church had to address sexual matters, since in the following decades they were matters of public debate, but there is much more. Archbishop John Charles McQuaid is one figure who is evidence that Dr FitzGerald’s charge is untrue. Not just Dr McQuaid’s considerable work in the area of social justice – for example, the founding of the Catholic Social Services Conference (now CrossCare) in 1941; the Dublin Institute of Catholic Sociology (later of Adult Education) 1950, and the setting up of the Radharc team which produced over 400 television documentaries. In addition, Dr McQuaid oversaw the setting up of 47 new parishes, along with their educational infrastructure. In no way can it be true that all energies of the Irish Catholic Church were concentrated on aspects of sexual morality. Headline-grabbing matters, like aspects of sexual morality, may overshadow other matters which are perhaps of greater long-term significance.
Historian Prof John Joseph Lee wrote in Ireland 1912–1985: “The church is a bulwark, perhaps now the main bulwark of the civic culture. It is the very opportunism of the traditional value system that leaves religion as the main bulwark between a reasonably civilised civil society and the untrammelled predatory instincts of individual and pressure group selfishness, curbed only by the power of rival predators.” (page 657). He added: “If religion were no longer to fulfil its historic civilising mission as a substitute for internalised values of civic responsibility, the consequences for the country, no less than for the church, could be lethal.” In this aspect, Prof Lee seems at one with Dr FitzGerald on the failure to develop a true civic morality. – Is mise,
Madam, – To read Dr FitzGerald’s article on civic morality (Opinion, October 16th), you might be forgiven for thinking there was some golden past age, where everything in Ireland was hunky-dory and everyone was accountable and the body politic, business and the professions were not riddled with cronyism and jobbery.
Dr FitzGerald conveniently forgets his own outrageous pension and State car are paid for by people who are now struggling to pay bills and keep a roof over their heads. Where is his own moral example in using the money he gets from the lecture circuit to pay for his own car and to massively reduce his State pension? He forgets that during the years he was young, and later when he was a decision-maker, society turned a blind eye to the horrors inflicted on women and children for the “sin” of being poor or being born out of wedlock, not to mention what was inflicted on people with disabilities. Let’s not forget the generations of women, whose talent was lost, due to them being forced to be housewives, as well as the loss of the thousands forced to emigrate.
The people who are now in Irish politics, and decision-making positions in the public sphere, are a mirror reflection of the Irish people who elect them, time and time again. They get to be candidates because party members select them at conventions, those members are a reflection of the Irish people too.
So can we please stop this myth, that today’s political class and policymakers, who have yet again ruined the country, are some sort of different species and, if only the “real” Irish people were in control, things would be grand. The real Irish are in control, that’s the problem.
Until the mentality of Irish people changes, the quality of people selected as candidates, elected as candidates and promoted to decision-making positions will remain as weak and corruptible as has always been. – Yours, etc,
Madam, – In response to Garret FitzGerald’s column, it is fair to say that one of the great failures of the State since its foundation has been the inability to ensure that every child receives a thorough education in civics, government and law. If one considers that the most important relationship that a citizen has (other than the relationship to friends and family) is with the state – then the sheer absence of anything amounting to a proper civic education is truly appalling and goes some way to explain the current malaise effecting the country.
While there exists on the Junior Certificate syllabus a subject loosely referred to as “civic, social and political education”, it is rudimentary in the main and utterly fails to instruct the student on the mechanics of government and the law, beyond a very fuzzy understanding of social responsibility. That this subject is instructed to Junior Certificate level only (Transition Year aside) speaks volumes of the importance successive governments have placed on it, while simultaneously throwing good money after bad in propping up the Irish language and failing miserably in the process.
Other countries such as France, have a long and proud tradition in civic education which goes back to the 19th century and which has recently been updated. The current French approach is designed to provide each school child with a coherent and progressive civic education from the école maternelle to the baccalauréat. In other European countries such as Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom there is renewed interest in civic education and the important role it plays in informing and educating public opinion. If we as a people are to progress – and become more civilised in the process – then the first port of call is to fundamentally review our education system to deliver programmes that are not only relevant but also designed to broaden and deepen our sense of civic responsibility.
Maybe then, as an educated society with a more sophisticated understanding of what governments do (and should not do) we might learn not to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. – Yours, etc,