RENEWING THE REPUBLIC: Since the Renewing The Republic series began two Saturdays ago, well over 200 readers have taken the trouble to join the debate online. Comments reproduced in the newspaper have, of necessity for space reasons, been edited and many more have not been republished in the paper.
Today, we republish here some of the more substantial responses, also edited, to encourage further debate. Each relates to a particular article in the series.
– Peter Murtagh
Eoghan O Neill, responding to Declan Kiberd: Two things need to be done. A coherent alternative needs to be offered, and the people need to be included in the imagining and devising of that alternative. Not only do we need reforms to our representative democracy, we need to establish a second arm of “deliberative democracy” so civic society groups and the public can have direct inputs into local and national level decision making.
We need to imagine and devise structures that makes our economy accountable. And gives us an economy that works for the nation, rather than the other way about. We need reforms at every level of governance and public service. We require structures that allow the people to communicate and engage with the politicians and public servants, as well as hold them to account.
This cannot be implemented from above. We need to go to the people, to establish a discourse that investigates the options. This series is a beginning, a limited one. We need more, nor is it beyond our capacity.
Robert Browne, responding to Fiach Mac Conghail (and online contributor Kieran Magennis): Here is a few ideas by no means exhaustive just a 10-minute list!
Transform the Dáil – no more than two TD’s per county a few extra ones for large centres of population; close the talking shop Seanad altogether; revamp of the legal hegemony [by] introducing lay judges to stop revolving door injustice and gravy trains; get serious about our national alcohol and drugs problems – use the army immediately to supplement the Garda in the fight against drug dealers; introduce a national ID card to determine who and how many are in the country; get rid of permanent jobs – there should be no such thing; no more cosy deals with cosy wealthy union leaders in government buildings; re-write the Constitution for a modern, progressive, quango and crony-capitalist free state; give the President real power to speak and act for the interest of the people; end the monopoly of health care professionals and their toxic unions; separate local government from national government; wind up Anglo Irish Bank, nationalise what is left of the banking system and amalgamate AIB and Bank of Ireland; wind up the Dublin Docklands Development Authority; stop the Nama robbery before it stops the whole country; [public sector] pensions should not be paid by the state unless money is there without borrowing, excluding old age pensions; wind up any local authority that is insolvent and put it into temporary administration; . . . get rid of upward only rent reviews and leases and help those that have been put out of business; no more toll money to be transferred to the private sector; state only to build roads and bridged; abolish half the state monopolies; stop Nama applying for permissions for their sites unless they are building something of national importance; no more free sites in hospital and public grounds; accountability – if you screw up, sorry, you have to go regardless of what sector you work in.
Orla 37, responding to Damien Rice: I am squirming with shame as I write this, as a professional woman with a few postgraduate qualifications to my name, I confess I struggled with Damien Rice's riddle, I went through many permutations in my head and yet the "surgeon" figure was male in every one of them. This from a pragmatic feminist!
Why is this so? I do not agree with Damien’s statement that “mothers represent nurturing and patience,” this is a social constraint placed on women by Bunreacht na hÉireann. This is as stereotypical as my presumption that the surgeon was male. However, I do agree with Damien that there may be “a bug in the brain” which limits our perspectives. This is a very dangerous mutating bug that is being used as an excuse by our church to justify their inaction while innocent little children were being raped and buggered. This virus is being used by our politicians and bankers as an excuse for the fiscal fiasco we find ourselves in. This bug was cultured in the Petri dish we call our Constitution, the Constitution that convinced us our patriarchal institutions – marriage, the church, the education system, the legal system, the political system – were God-given and were to be trusted absolutely.
It is time for a complete constitutional overhaul. I think maybe what Damien means by “mothering” the nation is to allow humanity and justice to prosper. The Arts are an expression of the feminine that is present in even the most masculine of our citizens – well done Gabriel Byrne, Damien Rice, Ballyfermot College et al. Forgive the ramblings of a pragmatic feminist who has had her cosy cage rattled!
John Williams,responding to Nuala O'Connor: Nuala says "the ferocious determination of the revolutionary leaders of the new state to prove that (Ireland was fit for self-government) drove Government policies for decades" is patently true. The problem is, how do we get the present political class (or any newly elected one) to work with the same determination? I dont think it is possible in the present climate. No Government Minister, public servant, or local government employee is going to make any decision without first getting a report from a "consultant" "expert" or "advisory body". . . Take electricity as an example. The new state set up the ESB as a strong national supplier and took all the private suppliers scattered all over the country into national ownership. It built the Shannon Hydro-Electric scheme to give the new state a plentiful supply of cheap electricity. Then in the late 40's the government instructed the ESB to launch a rural electrification programme. Within a few years every house in the country had electricity.
What would happen today if the same scenario presented itself? Firstly, there would be no central energy body (in the interests of competition, you understand), then no new power scheme would be set up unless there was a plethora of reports, advisers etc. Then it would be given to a “preferred” contractor so that someone would make financial killing. How can we change this? I don’t have an answer because the present neo-liberal climate of mé-féinism is worse than “ourselves alone” ideology of the early years of the state.
Jim Beresford, former Artane child prisoner 14262, responding to Sharon Commins: She argues that "survivors of abuse must be allowed to speak freely". Let me speak freely.
The Redress Board’s “gagging order” is properly called the “Acceptance and waiver” (or “waiver”). It is a legal document signed voluntarily by any former child prisoner who accepts no fault financial “compensation” from the Irish government in respect of injury sustained whilst in State custody as a child . . .
When I was aged 13, back in 1961, the theocratic Irish State invented a tissue of malicious lies about me and my family and used the lies as a pretext for my imprisonment. I was illegally imprisoned because my parents were in a "mixed marriage" and the State alleged that my father (a non-believer) was contravening [the] Ne Temere[decree of the Roman Catholic Church which forced a Protestant marrying a Catholic to agree to bring up as Catholics any children of the marriage] by failing to raise me as a "good Catholic boy". The State's lies were then entered in a State file. They were elaborated and augmented during the period of my imprisonment and were used to justify my ill-treatment in the prison. My Stasi-type file is now about 100 pages long. The file is essentially a false identity – a criminal identity – that the State sought to impose upon me in childhood. To this day, the Irish State is still peddling the malicious lies contained in the file. Worse still, the State expected me, in return for a bribe, to endorse those lies by signing the waiver . . . My signature on the waiver would validate the criminal identity contained in my State file and thereby incriminate myself and my family.
If Ireland is ever to be rehabilitated as a civilised nation it must rescind the illegal detention order issued against me and repudiate the malicious lies contained in my State file. Unless that is done, the human rights crimes committed against me in Ireland will remain upon the conscience of the Irish nation forever.
Frank McGuinness, responding to Shane Fitzgerald: I like this initiative, articles, responses, voices reaching for expression/understanding. And now Shane FitzGerald encouraging us to do the work ourselves! Really great!
. . . We need now at this time of crisis, to use the same synergy of togetherness, focus, imagination, to create structures which will facilitate community, economy, innovation, enthusiasm, the fabric of trust that has been eroded. Some suggestions:
– Keep Renewing the Republic going perhaps once weekly, for a year.
– A systemic investigation by interested journalists of the ethos/running of some of our organisations and the gradual evolution of a genuinestandard of quality/accountability/sustainability. There is a wealth of repressed enthusiasm, eagerness to contribute and imagination in our organisations – the quality and quantity of services/products would be hugely augmented if decision and related action were brought closer. Satisfaction and freedom to create may be even more important for organisations and individuals than a large income – and will incidentally generate far greater wealth.
– Open forums wherever we can, large or small – conversations over coffee, online communications/forums, newspaper, dialogue forums as above, perhaps the National Citizenship Forum mentioned by Fiach Mac Conghail. I prefer initiatives from below.
Myles Duffy, responding to Gary Joyce: Perhaps the Irish nation building experience has more in common with the evolution of a family business than with the typical development pattern of an independent nation . . . The survival rate of family businesses in Britain, past the third generation of the founding family, is only 24 per cent while just 5 per cent of Irish businesses exist as separate entities five years after the departure of the founder . . . This would imply that there is a single-minded focus on the progress and welfare of a family business while under the control of the first two generations that wanes with the third generation.
If this analogy were to be applied to Irish nationhood, would that explain how a State organisation’s resources were looted to flatter the vanity of a chief executive who aspired to the lifestyle and acclaim of a medieval aristocrat? Could it account for planning decisions that allowed residential accommodation to be built on flood plains across Ireland that were to become virtually derelict or worthless as a consequence of severe flooding? Would it explain a religious leadership that indulged itself with a veil of secrecy to maintain an existence independent of the nation’s laws? Could it account for financial regulators who would tolerate 100 per cent mortgages in quantums that were up to 8 times the income of borrowers?
. . . Most of the old rogues in leadership are being disgraced and replaced, some by strangers from another land. Some will hopefully be brought to account and punished in a court of law for their malfeasance. The great imponderable, as we advance towards the centenary of our independence, is whether that renewal can meet the needs and expectations of its citizens. We must never lose sight of the slogan that “asset values can go down, as well as up” especially when a nation is borrowed to the hilt. There is no preordained certainty that progress is always in a positive direction – ask any white Zimbabwean.
Neilers,responding to Theo Dorgan: I think that the word of the day should be "accountability" not shame or democracy. The Celtic Tiger has been and gone and all it has left us with is a heady debt laided hangover. Those who prospered the most in the Celtic Tiger days are now ringing their hands saying isn't it "awful" and "terrible"? We've seen our most profitable time in the State's history spent on tribunals to cut out corruption never let it happen again, and hear we are back to square one. We have a third rate health system, with the system at the root of the fault, not the overstretched workers. A telecoms infrastructure which is one of the great jokes of the EU. We cannot get the basics right. It is not good enough for ministers to resign after the horse has bolted: walk away from a problem rather then fix it seems to be modus operandi of the time.
All material in the series may be read online at irishtimes.com/indepth/ renewing-the-republic/