Where good governance is homeless

A fortnight ago, as it ran out of excuses for its tolerance of sleaze and cronyism, the Government came up with two new lines to be followed by hapless Ministers on Questions And Answers, The Last Word or wherever the dangers of saying something might lurk.

One, of course, was the standard blame-the-media strategy. The other, slightly more intelligent, was to ask the public to focus on "real issues". Instead of getting our knickers in a knot over corruption and impunity, we were to look at the startling progress that had been made in tackling the nitty-gritty issues of social policy.

This would be a decent argument, except that, when we do look at the everyday business of good government, we too often find a system so debilitated that it is quite simply incapable of meeting the most minimal standards that any civilised society must reach. Take Padraig O Morain's report in this paper yesterday, highlighting the devastating reality that a State with a budget surplus of £2.9 billion for the first half of the year cannot provide basic care and accommodation for a 16-year-old girl who has been raped, tortured and horrendously abused by her father.

If this failure were an aberration, a case of someone slipping through the safety net, it would be disturbing. The truth is that it is entirely predictable. There is no safety net and our system of governance seems utterly incapable of erecting one. If you want to see what bad government really means, just look at what's happened to public policy on youth homelessness.

For years now, passionate, dedicated people like Peter McVerry have been highlighting the scandalous neglect of vulnerable kids who, often as a result of abuse, end up on the streets.

Finally, in February 1999, a Forum on Youth Homelessness was established by the Eastern Health Board which serves the Dublin area in which the problem is most acute. Chaired by Miriam Hederman O'Brien, it brought together the major voluntary and statutory agencies working in the area, including the EHB itself, the Department of Health and Children and the Garda Siochana.

So far, so good. This, albeit late in the day, is the way good government works. Bring together the people who know what they're talking about, let them identify the causes and the solutions and then get on with putting those solutions into practice.

After 15 meetings, numerous working groups, hundreds of submissions and acres of professional research, the forum came up with a good, clear report in April. It admitted the failures and identified one overwhelming reason for them. There were lots of services, but no co-ordination.

A young homeless person seeking help might expect to come into contact with "as many as eight agencies in a single day". Schools, medical services and the justice system might also be involved. "The young person will probably have to explain his or her situation in turn to each individual professional and the responses in each case may well not be co-ordinated with the others." It was therefore "hardly surprising" that many homeless young people simply gave up on all the services.

Thus, while money and resources are certainly not irrelevant, the key issue in a scandalous failure of public provision is bad government. The State is failing in one of its most basic tasks, harnessing the energies of its own structures and of civil society to meet a need. The very same problems of uncoordinated provision, moreover, are highlighted in other recent reports like the Madonna House abuse inquiry and the Kilkenny incest inquiry.

The key recommendation of the forum on Youth Homelessness is, therefore, the establishment of a single statutory body run by a high-powered director and an independent board with a duty to develop and deliver the necessary services. Its first job would be to look at the current services, identify the gaps and set about filling them. These structures are, says the report, to be "in place and operational" by the end of this year.

These are hardly radical or controversial proposals. The only surprising thing about them, indeed, is that they have to be put forward in the year 2000 in what is supposed to be a modern, civilised State.

And guess what? They are not being implemented. In their responses to the report the Government and the ERHA have watered down its key recommendations to the point where they have become the kind of soggy mess that still passes for good governance in Ireland.

Instead of an independent, accountable authority, there is to be a Youth Homeless Providers Forum, an advisory body with no powers, no muscle, no resources of its own. A talking shop, in other words. Instead of a high-powered director with the job of providing the necessary services, there is to be a general manager for homeless services appointed within the existing, and patently discredited, ERHA structures. This will be an internal ERHA appointment and will not be advertised. Instead of a review of the current services and the creation of a new network of provision, there is to be a pilot project in one area.

This is what you get in a system of government that has been poisoned by the chronic diseases of cronyism, mutual back-scratching and lack of accountability. When confronted with a problem, the instinct is not to solve it, but to look for ways of deflecting it so that (a) a superficial gloss of change can be applied and (b) the threat of independent and accountable power can be avoided.

Thus, in this case, the real problem is not youth homelessness but how to appear to be dealing with youth homelessness without disturbing the existing structures. And that is the real, real problem.

fotoole@irish-times.ie