We all know that we are in an economic and financial crisis. We also know that we are in an environmental crisis. We are subjected daily to descriptions and analyses of just how bad things are. Both appear overwhelming, to such an extent that we feel powerless to do anything about them.

 It is clear that what we need is solutions. Yet solutions seem to be in short supply and, insofar as any are being offered, they all appear to be in the realm of macro, ‘big-picture’ structural changes which only governments can bring about. Hence, we wait frustrated and disempowered while our leaders strive for answers.

 Yet, here’s the interesting thing. The solution to both of these problems can best be found through a ‘bottom-up’ participative process. Not only is this the most comprehensive way to deal with our problems and fix them, it will also invigorate our democratic and social culture. What we want to do after all is to build harmonies and find solutions, not accentuate antagonisms and build conflict and despair. Here’s how it can be done.

 First, we need to state clearly what our social and political goal is. What is our State about? This is a debate we rarely have but, particularly at times like this, it’s good to consider what might be thought of as obvious. Part of the answer must be that we want all citizens to be included, to have meaningful social activity, to have the means for a decent quality of life. There can be no more appalling notion than that of someone being ‘redundant’. Now, how do we bring this about? We do it by constructing a system that is more responsive to people and their real needs. The way to do this is to give people the power to define and solve their own problems. The means and ends become harmonised – the means used lead to the ends desired.

 Therefore, second, we need to acknowledge that people can be trusted and empowered. Those affected by issues or those at the frontline of issues, are the best sources of knowledge about what needs to be done. Empower them to do so! Let the power go from centralised, bureaucratised systems! We need to allow all kinds of groups – community groups, citizen groups, disability groups, drug addicts, businesses, public services – to work out their own solutions from the bottom up.

 Third, there is a straightforward method for doing this. Key to the method is that the effected group defines the problems and defines what they need. They do this by developing a generating question. Examples might be as follows. How do we who have disabilities live as independently as possible? How do we as a business improve this organisation’s service and save money? How do we as a community provide activities for our children?

 The critical thing is that the relevant group, i.e. those directly affected or those who directly work in the delivery or activity, are trusted to generate the answers and given the budget directly (however limited this must be) to achieve their own priorities. There are lots of ways that this can be done. These range from open meetings and facilitated gatherings right up to the wonderful possibilities available through the internet such as virtual solution systems and specially created social network sites. Information and ideas can flow and be accessed with greater ease now than ever before. Any problem can be addressed in this way from those that are small-scale right up to large-scale issues such as setting budgets through a participative process.

 If communities and organizations – both real and virtual – could empower themselves we would see a real social, political and cultural renewal. Our people would stop being made dependent and would start acting. We would build a culture of engagement, one that hopefully would sweep away our discredited political system of clientalism. Our organisations would become facilitators of activity not depositories of resources unequally distributed.

 A bottom-up democratic participation would almost certainly give rise to new forms of local economic activity. Local currencies and local credit systems might be developed which would provide the means for a renewed community economy providing a basic stream of goods and services. Local currencies could be utilised to reward useful social activity such as work with children, with our young people, our elderly and environmental enhancement. We need meaningful activity for all our people. Local economies creates local resilience (a buffer against global economic shocks) and a basic security foundation for all citizens regarding a minimum of basic goods and services.

 What is outlined here is not utopian. It is entirely achievable once people have confidence and the impetus to change the way we are doing things. What is required is to reduce bureaucracy and top-down management systems and instead to build smart organisations and communities. This is an agenda for economic, social and political change that is radical but uses no jargon, involves no protest, is positive, smart and empowering and uses tools already available. It centres simply on bottom-up participative solution seeking.

Below is the text of a speech i delivered to the irish Practice Nurses Association conference in Westport on October 17th. I have been asked to make it available.

Introduction

 I want to begin with a rather well-known quotation. It’s from Maev-Ann Wren’s book Unhealthy State – Anatomy of a Sick Society (2003: 50).

 Irish people die younger because they tolerate an inequality between them which breeds ill-health, and they accept a health care system and a view of health care which implicitly places lesser value on the lives of those with lesser means.

 This is an extraordinary and disturbing sentence or, at least, it should be extraordinary and disturbing. Since 2002/3, when her book was written, we have had a further four years of unprecedented economic growth and prosperity. Does her judgement still ring true? Let me quote now from the more recent book – published this year – by Sara Burke which is provocatively entitled Irish Apartheid – Healthcare Inequality in Ireland.

 We have an apartheid system of healthcare, where those who can afford to, have quick access to what can be life-saving diagnosis and treatment, quicker than those who can’t afford private care. This has always been the case but, in the last decade, the two-tier system of healthcare has been accentuated, with increasing numbers of people incentivised to take out private insurance, privileging them over those who cannot afford to skip the queue (2009: 4).

 What is going on here? What is being described in these books? Is this simply an administrative defect which results merely in inconvenience but little real harm? No, as we know, it is not. This structure of our health system has real implications. A recent report from the Institute of Public Health has shown that 5,400 people die prematurely each year in Ireland due to inequality and poverty. 5,400 people – more than 100 each week. That is a figure so large it almost cannot be comprehended. It is only when this statistic becomes personalised around an individual – such as with Susie Long – that there is any political or media reaction. Susie Long died in October 2007 – two years ago. Has this reality changed? No.

 In this presentation today I want to make a very simple argument. The pattern of illness and sickness in our society tells us something fundamental about our society. Equally, the social structure of our society – particularly the pattern of social inequality within it – tells us something fundamental about the causes and distribution of illness in our society. In other words, there is a clear and demonstrable connection between the pattern of illness and the pattern of social inequality. This connection is so close that we can say that social inequality is a health issue. It is far more than just that of course but it is absolutely a health issue as well. Extraordinarily, far from being a contentious claim, this is widely acknowledged and understood even by those who run our health service. For example, Dr. John Kelleher, the Ass. Nat. Dir. For Health Protection in the HSE was quoted in The Irish Times in Sept 2006 as saying:

 ‘The fundamental issue in relation to poor health is income; if you don’t have that, you’re never going to be healthy again.’ 

 Ireland is a seriously unequal society. This, in turn, has a significant impact on the pattern of illness in our society. In simple terms, the greater the level of social inequality the greater the level of illness and the more unevenly distributed those illnesses are among the population. In short, the poor will be sicker than the wealthy.

 However, and this is important, social inequality is not a phenomenon that only has negative impacts on the poor and disadvantaged. Crucially, it has negative impacts for all in society. If we want a healthy and well functioning society, the most important and effective method by which this can be achieved is by creating and sustaining social equality. At this time of economic and social crisis, the great project of hope which we could grasp onto is to finally bring about a socially equal and just Ireland which would truly transform all our lives, not just the lives of the poor.

 I have made a number of assertions! Let me try now and systematically, if I can, ground these assertions in empirical data. First, is Ireland unequal? Second, does this inequality impact on our pattern of health? Third, does achieving social equality really make such a difference? I will do all this without a single powerpoint slide so I’m going to try to avoid too many statistics!

 Is Ireland Unequal?

It may be difficult for some people to think of Ireland as an unequal society. After all, we don’t seem to have people starving on the streets. But poverty is always a relative concept. You are poor when measured relative to the norms within your given society. In aggregate terms we have been, and remain, a wealthy society. However, the critical factor in understanding poverty in a society is how that wealth is distributed. The key determinant in triggering social consequences and shaping the society is the distribution of that wealth – in other words, the real issue is how big is the gap between the wealthy and the poor.

 Relative to the rest of the EU, particularly Western Europe, and relative to other aggregately wealthy societies, Ireland shows a very high level of social inequality. Only the United States performs worse than us consistently in international terms among the top 20 wealthy societies.

 Some – few! – statistics. Various studies and reports show that we have approximately 16 to 17% of our population living in relative poverty (i.e. with incomes less than 60% of the median income). That’s about 720,000 people. About 6.5% of our population live in consistent poverty (i.e. lack consistently a number of basic material indicators for a comfortable average existence). That’s about 290,000 people. Let me quote now from another Irish Times report in 2006:

Around half of the State’s 1,000,000 children are affected by income poverty at some stage during their childhood. A major study by the ESRI published yesterday, which tracked children between 1994 and 2001, found that young people tended to move in and out of poverty based on factors such as the employment, education and health status of their parents. Of the State’s just over 1,000,000 children, 535,000 experienced poverty at some stage over this period. A quarter of all children (246,000) experienced poverty for a relatively short time of between one and two years. However, just under a fifth (182,000) remained “locked” in poverty for between five and eight years. One in five children experience relative income poverty at any one point in time.

Bank of Ireland’s Wealth of the Nation Report in 2007 showed that the wealthiest 1% of the population owned 20% of the country’s wealth. The top 5% owned 40% of the nation’s wealth. This means that the other 95% of the population had the remaining 60% of the country’s wealth.

 Within this huge group of poor people, certain categories of people are deeply embedded in poverty and deprivation. These include Travellers, asylum seekers, lone parents (38% of whom are at risk of poverty), elderly people, the unemployed (of whom we now have over 400,000).

 One final internationally recognised measure of social equality is the gini coefficient. This is a way of measuring income distribution. If all income went to 1 person and none to everyone else the coefficient would be 100. If everyone had the exact same income the coefficient would be 0. So, the lower the value, the more equal the society. In the mid-1980s Ireland’s gini coefficient was 33.1. In the mid-1990s it was 32.4. By 2000 it had improved to 30. However, by 2005 it had risen again to 32. This can be compared to 23 in Sweden, 24 in Denmark, 28 in France, Germany and Norway.

 The point is that over that twenty-year period – from the grim 1980s to the booming mid-noughties – our level of relative poverty and therefore social inequality remained largely unchanged. We are not a socially equal society. The question that worries me is whether we really want to be or whether we – the relatively comfortable and secure – are happy with the way things are. Poverty seems to be invisible. It is rarely highlighted as a pressing social issue. It is rarely the stuff of heated political debates. It’s almost as if poverty is not our concern. I want to show shortly that this is not so – social inequality affects us all.

 Impact of inequality on health

 We have known for a long time that physical and material conditions have a decisive impact on the patterns of health. Once, within what can be called a bio-medical model of health, it was assumed that the causes of ill-health lay exclusively within the patient’s body and that treatment simply involved identifying the broken or damaged part and fixing it. This was a very mechanical, reductionist perspective.

 We now know of course that each human being is embedded within a complex socio-cultural and ecological setting and that the quality of that setting profoundly affects individual well-being. This occurs to such an extent that the causes for ill-health and mental stress are more likely to lie outside the individual than within. This has come to be called the social model of health.

 Yet even though I am claiming that this is well understood and recognised, it is extraordinary how rarely we hear health debated publicly in terms of the social model. Rather, when talking about health and the health service, our focus tends to be on medicine, on service provision, on treatment regimes and resources. In this sense we have a sickness service not a health service. We are less inclined to enquire into the deep causes of ill-health in our society and enquire into how we can address these fundamental causes in the first place so that we can reduce the number of sick people rather than continuing to focus on expanding our capacity to manage more sick people. As is clear we just can’t keep up. So, it is important to ask, why are so many of us sick? What is going on in the wider society?

 To answer this, we need to understand the social causes of illness. These include assessing the immediate social and environmental circumstances surrounding individuals. What is the quality of the social world? Can people access social services? Are they well connected to the wider society? Are they experiencing stress? Do they feel respected? What is the crime rate? Is there good public transport?

 It also includes the macro social and environmental context. Is the society wealthy? Are the society’s resources available to all or to a few? Are there employment prospects for all? Is the air clean, and the water pure? Does government policy support inclusion and service provision?

 Individual lifestyle is crucial as well. What is the quality of diet? Can people access and afford good quality and healthy food? Do they exercise? Can they access and afford sports and recreation facilities?

 Indeed, when we think about the ingredients of what constitutes a healthy life (both physical and mental) – exercise, food, low stress, social inclusion and connection, comprehensive service provision and access – we can readily see that we are almost entirely thinking about social causes. In this sense, sickness is not simply something you just ‘get’, something that unfortunately ‘happens’. It has clear patterns many of which are identifiable and predictable, patterns which have their roots in the nature and quality of the social world around us.

 We know that social inequality leads to greater levels of sickness. The poorer you are the more likely you are to be ill and in need of medical services. Yet interestingly the key finding of numerous studies is that the key issue here is not the amount of absolute poverty in the society – rather, it is the amount of relative poverty. In other words, it is the level of social inequality that is the determining factor for the pattern of illness. The bigger the gap between the wealthy and the poor, the greater the level of illness generally, and the more those illnesses will be disproportionately experienced by the poor.

 Back to some statistics! Take death. If we compare death rates from various diseases for the richest and poorest socioeconomic groups we find that the poorest have twice the likelihood of dying from cancer than the wealthiest, three times the likelihood of dying from heart disease, almost four times the likelihood from stroke, over five times the likelihood from suicide, six times from accident, almost sixteen times from mental or behavioural disorders, and sixteen times more likelihood from alcohol abuse.[1]

 I have already mentioned the appalling figure of 5,400 deaths per annum directly due to poverty and inequality. Social inequality kills the poor but it degrades all of us.

 Elizebeth Cullen, in an important article in the FEASTA Review of 2004 which reviewed large amounts of data linking poverty and ill-health, has written:

 A report in 2002 found that medical card holders had higher incidences of cardiovascular disease, stroke, hypertension, asthma, osteoarthritis, skin cancer and all other cancers, underactive thyroid, kidney stones, osteoporosis, gallstones, duodenal and gastric ulcers, and diabetes. A further report found that 52.9% of medical card holders suffered from one or more health conditions, in contrast to 22.7% of private insurance holders.

 I could go on and on. But there are is only so much data one can absorb – especially without powerpoint! Let me quote finally from the editors of the British Medical Journal, writing as far back as 1996, in a review of studies confirming the link between income inequality and health:

 The big idea is that what matters in determining mortality and health in a society is less the overall wealth of that society and more how evenly wealth is distributed. The more equally wealth is distributed the better the health of that society.

 Does achieving social equality really make such a difference?

Instead, let me return to the question does achieving social equality really make such a difference? To answer this, I want to rely on a very interesting and important book recently published called The Spirit Level – Why more equal societies almost always do better. It is written by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.

 The argument of this book is straightforward and not by any means original. They set out to show that the benefits (both socially and in terms of health) of economic growth in rich countries have reached their limit. Now, the quality of life is determined they argue by the equal distribution of wealth. It should be clear that this is a position that I, and most social scientists, would agree with.

 What is particularly important about this book however is the impressive amount of empirical data that they present from around the world to support this argument. They show – I think compellingly – that income equality creates better outcomes across a whole range of social indicators. Specifically, they examine:

•  Community life and social relations (social capital and trust)
• Mental health and drug use
• Physical health and life expectancy
• Obesity
• Educational performance
• Teenage births
• Violence
• Imprisonment
• Social mobility (opportunities).

 They demonstrate that in rich countries health and social problems are closely related to the level of inequality in those countries. In short, the more unequal the society, the greater the level of problems in these nine areas. It is a simple but elegant argument.

 Why might social equality be so important? The answer lies I think in understanding that we are fundamentally social beings who need to belong to the social groups within which we live. We have a compelling need to be accepted, to be able to participate, to be able to access the resources of that society. If we can’t, if we are repulsed, marginalised, isolated, ill-treated, then it has devastating effects on us. To have distance placed between you and the society to which you belong places you in an extremely unsettling position. These distances may be symbolic (the wrong accent, the wrong clothes) or actual (the wrong address, the wrong ethnicity) or, indeed, both. Where income differences are bigger, social distances (symbolic and actual) are greater. The materially comfortable and the poor may live in the same country but they live in different social worlds.

 For their part, Wilkinson and Pickett suggest that social inequality causes wider social problems because it leads to

•  A rise in anxiety
• Loss of self-esteem and social security
• Threats to the social self
• Loss of pride, increase in shame and loss of status and,
• Inequality increases social evaluation anxieties

 Status is so important for the social creature that we humans are. Having low status has a direct and immediate impact on our well-being. It raises our stress levels, suppresses our immune levels, causes us anxiety. It makes us isolated, marginalised and reduced in our very humanity. To quote Wilkinson and Pickett again – ‘Chronic stress wears us down and wears us out’.

 Their argument is that social equality leads directly to social improvements in regards to each of their nine social indicators. It improves community life and social relations, improves mental and physical health, improves educational performance, reduces violence and the need for imprisonment and increases social opportunities and mobility. Hence, equal societies nearly always perform better.

Conclusion

The conclusion I think is that we need income equality in order to create socially and environmentally sustainable societies and, of course, to create healthy societies. The point is that equality is a matter that should concern us all. We all live in society. The better that society is, the better for all of us. None of us can be isolated and asocial unless we wish to live in a hyper-privatised world of private education, private hospitals, private security, private gated communities, etc. This surely is more a dystopian image of the world than something we might aspire to.

 Equality is a health issue. We are of course not used to thinking like this, or putting it like this. Thus, the greatest single contribution we can make to improving the health status of our society is to bring about social equality. That we have done precisely the opposite in Ireland should therefore cause us no surprise when today we see huge amounts of illness and waiting lists and demands for medical services both primary and hospital. Just why are we so ill? What is wrong with us? Why are we surprised that our society is producing so much physical and mental sickness? What I am arguing is that one of the most important reasons is our level of social inequality.

 It seems clear to me that when we are thinking about our society and about its health we are not thinking deeply enough. Our debate is not at a deep enough level. In our present economic crisis, we are proceeding by reflex, by an accounting template of cutting services for all and raising taxes for all. In addition, crucial decisions, which will shape our society, are being made in reality according to the power of various vested sectional interests. When this happens the poor and weak lose – again.

 What we don’t have is a social plan which contains a vision for what type of country we want to have. We have apparently economic-based plans centred on a ‘smart economy’. What about a social plan centred on a ‘just and equal society’? Especially if it turns out that a smart society is in fact a just and equal society. This is surely essential to do so that as we go through this present phase of suffering and pain we can do so with the hope and expectation that we are finally building an Ireland of social equality and inclusion.

I say this on the assumption of course that this is what we really want. I hope it is. Such a society is not an airy-fairy unrealisable dream. We have the models all around us – in Norway and Denmark, for example – countries of comparable size to us and with similar histories.  Let’s study them, copy them directly if need be, at least see what they have learned and apply it to our own situation. We need this vision in order to give ourselves in this dark time a horizon of hope. The bottom line is that achieving social equality is not just about the poor – it’s about all of us. We all benefit.

As I indicated last week, I would address four key issues facing our country and seek to propose practical solutions rather than simply outline further grievances. I will start with the democratic deficit.

There can be no doubt that there is a serious democratic deficit in the country. Just walk around and talk to people in our expanding new housing estates or in the small communities of rural Ireland. People everywhere feel that they personally cannot participate meaningfully in the decisions which directly affect their lives. Whether that be regarding playgrounds, schools, healthcare, anti-social behaviour or farming practices, very many people feel alienated from the democratic process which is meant to serve them. Vested interests and those with influence and money seem to decide everything. Politics is experienced as a mildly amusing spectator sport populated by politicians who operate on the basis of personal favours and strokes rather than rights and accountability.

This needs to change. We need a radical democratic renewal. Elsewhere on this blog I have analysed some of our deeper, structural democratic defects. Here, let me outline some immediate practical proposals.

Local Government

• Directly elected County and Town Mayors, serving fixed four-year terms and exercising most of the powers of the County and Town Managers.
• Annual local budgets under the control of the elected Mayor.
• Establishment of community and neighbourhood councils with diect liaison to Mayor regarding budgets and local development plans.
• Compulsory pre-planning requirements for developers of large projects to consult with local communities directly affected by their projects.

National Government

• A standing Corruption Investigation Body with the power to investigate any allegation of corruption against an elected representative or public office holder.
• A standing Oireachtas Petitions’ Committee to receive petitions from citizens on any possible breach of the law.
• Dail reform to ensure that power is re-balanced towards the legislature rather than the executive. There needs to be more questions, more accountability and more capacity for legislation to be initiated by individual deputies. The Westminster model needs to be reformed so that, for example, the executive can be defeated on proposed legislation without having to resign.
• Major Seanad reform. A second house of the legislature is of value but its electorate needs radical expansion. Thus the number of nominating bodies should be expanded and updated, members of those bodies should be permitted to vote and all third-level graduates should be able to vote in the ‘third-level’ constituency.

Finally, a word on myself. I am deeply conscious of the irony of running in a constituency that is archaic and elitist. However, all I can do is take the constitutional situation as I find it and use the opportunity presented to make an argument as best as I can. That after all is at the core of my idea of politics – making arguments and seeking support.

Social Science Research Council workshop, NUI Galway.

The SSRC is comprised of a group of academic researchers working in the field of environment. Disciplines encompass sociology, geography, law and the natural sciences. The third annual workshop was held last weekend in NUI, Galway.  In my paper I argued that environmental conflicts are not always easily identifiable in terms of specific issues. In fact they often involve cultural assumptions which are not necessarily articulated in the course of disputes. 

In the Corrib gas conflict, locals were forced to define the dispute in terms relevant to their various interlocutors.

Yet the dispute was about far deeper cultural issues than that. Take Willie Corduff’s explanation for his ongoing opposition: I was born and reared on this farm. It’s memories that are making us do what we are doing. My father came here in 1947. The place then was pure bog with a fallen-down house. The memories we have are of the way we were brought up. Hard times. They’re the memories you have and the memories you have to keep. To see someone coming in now and trying to destroy it, as Shell is doing, it kills you. Our footsteps are around the place since we were able to walk. There are memories of our fathers and mothers and how hard they worked to bring us up. This was all bog land. It all had to be reclaimed by hand. Doing corners by spade and shaking a bit of their own seed that the cows had left after them in the shed. It wasn’t that they went out and bought seed for they couldn’t afford to go out and buy seed. They gathered up the seed that was left after the cow had eaten. They shook it in a corner every year to make it green. That’s the reality. It’s all memories. You cannot let them die (Our Story: The Rossport Five 2006:15).  How do you translate that into terms cognisable by bureaucratic processes or multi-national corporations? Therefore, in my Seanad campaign I will argue that planning for major industrial developments must involve: 

1. An obligatory pre-planning phase whereby developers and community engage meaningfully and agree a development model.
2. One, over-arching independent body which oversees complex projects which involve multiple consents.
3. That development be recognized as requiring community consent with the community as genuine partners in the pre-planning and consents phase.

It might be worthwhile briefly taking stock of where stands the campaign to reconfigure Shell’s project in North Mayo. Despite a concerted and coordinated effort to marginalise those opposing the current project by attempting to portray them as isolated and unrepresentative the reality is otherwise. Take the key issues raised by the campaign.

First, where should the gas be processed? 

On this key question, the latest Red C / Western People opinion poll showed that 55% want the gas processed off-shore and 7% want the project halted. 34% support the current proposal. This poll shows the same finding as all four previous local polls on the issue carried out by The Irish Times, TG4, The Mayo Advertiser and RTE. In other words, a clear majority in Mayo support off-shore processing.

Second, why do we have the Corrib gas conflict?

The Red C / Western People poll showed that 60% blame either the government or Shell and 30% local protesters. This is a clear ratio of 2:1.

Third, are there benefits arising from the current Corrib gas project?

It is clear that all fair observers now aknowledge that the financial deal under which Corrib is being developed is unfair and wrong. On last night’s Vincent Browne programme on RTE radio, all the election candidates from all the political parties present condemned the deal as disgraceful. In addition, Mayo County Council, Westport Town Council and Castlebar Town Council have voted in recent weeks unamimously in support of motions calling for a renegotiation of the deal. Ballina Town Council is due to do the same next week.

Clearly, the campaign to change the Corrib gas project is supported by a majority.  The campaign is the mainstream view in County Mayo. The argument has been won. We now need political leadership to implement the will of the people on this matter.

But what we appear to be experiencing is a decaying of democracy occurring at both poles of the democratic process – the quality of representation (supply) and the engagement of citizens (demand).

The logic of the free-market is asserted to be the most rational logic available – anything else becomes, ipso facto, irrational and potentially dysfunctional. The claim made is that each individual pursuing his or her own maximum utility results in optimum social well-being. The State’s role is merely to ensure the best environment within which this rationality can proceed. The consequence however is that the concepts of a particular economic language game have overwhelmed our ability to speak politically in any other credible way. Those who attempt to do so can be charged with being unreasonable, unrealistic, and even dangerous. The effect on public discourse of this ascendancy has been to close down the capacity of public representatives to speak credibly in any other categories. They have become caught in an intellectual box beyond which they cannot manoeuvre.

Finally, elected representatives have presided over the dismantling of the State’s domain of concern in the last couple of decades, voluntarily so in the West, often compulsorily elsewhere as conditions of international loans or in consequence of military interventions. This has occurred in two directions. First has been the deregulation and privatisation of large areas of the economy that were formerly publicly owned – such as transport and electricity provision. Secondly, the State has increasingly devolved decision-making powers from democratic institutions to a variety of administrative bodies. Nowhere is this latter tendency more apparent than in the environmental policy-making area where questions of environmental impact have been determined by pollution control agencies, environmental impact assessment procedures and ‘scientifically’ grounded risk assessments. Environmental concerns have become shunted away from political forums and instead rendered into a series of technical problems to be processed by administrative bodies. The result in this case has been the reduction, de-politicisation and domestication of environmental issues.

This supply contraction has met with, and in large part has itself influenced, a corresponding decline in the demand for representation from electorates. This contraction is an understandable response to the realisation of the limits of representative effectiveness. The growing loss of belief in liberal democracy is summed up in commonly occurring phrases such as – ‘It makes no difference who you vote for’, ‘They are all the same’, ‘They are all puppets who can do nothing anyway’. This assessment by electorates is accentuated by revelations of political corruption, which have swept many Western States in recent years, our own included. As a result it has become apparent that the formal channel of exercising democratic power grounded on votes exercised by citizens has become outflanked by informal channels of influence, resting on financial power and political funding (licit and illicit), by the corporate few.

Charting a sustainable energy policy and preparing the country for rapid global warming are the two biggest challenges facing the State. The government’s White Paper proposes that 33% of our electricity will come from renewable energy sources by 2020. But this is merely aspirational because such a commitment is not integrated into the social and economic framework needed to bring it about. The Paper fails to adequately address transportation and industry as critical sources of greenhouse emissions. Let me outline this with a few illustrations:

1. We need micro-generation of electricity using diverse but complementary power sources. This would give rise to community grids connected into national and European grids so that energy deficits can be imported and energy surpluses exported. But this requires new infrastructure and new community planning.
2. We need an emphasis on organic agriculture so that food is grown as locally as possible without recourse to chemical fertilizers and the need for long transportation chains.
3. We need to radically reduce private car usage. This requires new public transport facilities and the integration of work and home and a sustained effort to eliminate long car-based commuting.
4. We need businesses and factories to develop local energy sources and to be rewarded for so doing.
5. We need to derive significant financial returns from indigenous fossil fuel sources such as Corrib in order to invest in developing and supporting renewable and micro energy systems.

In summary, real energy sustainability will require a real de-centralisation of the society and economy. There is no evidence from the White Paper that the government is thinking along these necessary lines.

The Energy White Paper makes a few interesting references to Corrib. 

Security of Supply

In section 3.3.3 there is a clear acknowledgement that there is no security of supply issue facing the country. This removes one of the key justifications being cited to progress the Corrib gas project in its present form.

Fiscal Terms

The White Paper clearly exposes government confusion on this point. In section 3.6.1 it speaks of reviewing these terms if prospectivity improves. But in section 3.6.2 it openly acknowledges that significant potential fossil fuel resources exist in the Irish off-shore. So why not change these terms now? In any event the financial return on any such find is so enormous given the rise in fossil fuel values that the present regime is clearly inadequate. The government fails to realise the investment capacity for the transition to renewable energy that a proper fiscal regime would deliver.

Safety and Regulation

The White Paper acknowledges and concedes two key issues in the local campaign to change the Corrib gas project. In section 3.6.5 the task of regulating and supervising production pipelines is granted to the CER and thereby removed from the Dept of Marine. Local people always argued that the Dept could not both encourage the oil and gas industry and supervise it at the same time. Secondly, in section 3.6.5 it is also announced that a National Risk Framework will now be put in place for oil and gas projects among others. Again, this acknowledges that Corrib was developed without such a Framework to properly determine risk and risk assessment, which has been another argument advanced by local people in North Mayo.

After so much deliberate confusing and obscuring of the issues, it is time to address in a calm and sensible manner the causes of the Corrib conflict and to consider how this matter might be resolved. 

The core problem with the Corrib gas project – as acknowledged in an Irish Times editorial some months ago – is the decision to locate the refinery nine kilometers inland. This unprecedented feature of the project has given rise to the local campaign of opposition. Why? Let me outline a number of reasons.

 First, the plant is being constructed on a bog. To build it 500,000 tonnes of wet Atlantic peat must be removed. This is an extraordinarily risky procedure, one never before attempted. The risk of peat run-off, aluminium build-up, increase in peat instability in a wide area and general water contamination is high. This is a serious matter given that Carrowmore Lake, the source of most of the drinking water for Erris, is just two miles away from the site.

Second, gas processing involves a number of hazardous activities. In the event of a fire or explosion, the area is poorly served by necessary support infrastructure such as medical facilities, fire fighting capacity and accessible roads. Yet the plant is being proposed for a populated area with a number of houses some hundreds of yards from it. In addition, the inland location of the plant necessitates the routing of a production pipeline also through populated areas.

 Third, the processing gives rise to a number of chemical by-products. Discharges will occur to both air and water. There will be a high-pressure flare stack some 40 metres high, two low pressure chimneys and the developer will ‘cold vent’ methane to the air. All of this will degrade the environmental quality of the area and give rise to ongoing local anxiety about health.

 Fourth, the insertion of this huge plant into an entirely rural and non-industrialised area will change the character of the area irrevocably and transform it from a location of intimacy and familiarity to one that is alien to many of its inhabitants. The physical building itself will cover twenty-two acres of ground and will operate 24/7 with attendant noise and lighting.

 Finally, it is clear that Shell’s determination to secure the Bellanaboy site is driven by their expectation of developing further gas wells in the future. This was acknowledged by them at the An Bord Pleanála oral hearing. The 400 acres available at Bellanaboy permits them to build additional processing plants in the future.

 The question for people outside the area directly affected by this project is this – is the exposure of a small community to health and safety risks and to environmental and cultural loss necessary because of the overall benefits to the country as a whole? Well, what are the benefits?

 Is it security of supply? No, because Bord Gas makes it quite clear that most Irish gas comes from the North Sea and that there is no medium term threat to the continuity of those supplies. Is it lower cost? No, the price of gas is determined by global market forces and Corrib will be purchased at full market price. Are there significant financial benefits to the State? Again no. No royalties are being extracted, no equity share taken, no windfall tax levied. All exploration and development costs can be written off against tax at 100% from year one. Thus very little financial benefit will arise. Might there be jobs from the project? Minimal, other than in the short-term construction of the plant. Once the plant is operational only fifty jobs will be needed. The companies are not obliged to employ Irish workers on their exploration rigs nor do they have to source their supplies from Ireland.

 The real beneficiaries are Norway (because of Statoil’s involvement), Scotland (where the bulk of the industry’s supplies are sourced) and the shareholders of Shell and Marathon. The question then is straightforward – is this project worth it? Perhaps a more important question arises – what kind of Ireland do you want to live in? If you think the benefits so obvious that a small community should suffer loss as a result then fine. But if you believe in the right to live securely, without risk, then weigh up the balance and ask are the benefits really so clear that a community of your fellow citizens should be forced to accept this particular project.

 The real issue is to resolve the conflict. It is a shame that neither Minister Dempsey or the Taoiseach have visited the area and sat down and spoken to the local people. The proposal for an independent Inquiry to determine the optimum development concept for the project, employing clear and reasonable criteria, was rejected within hours by Shell and the government. Surely the time has come to pause, take stock and agree a proper development that meets with local consent and delivers real national benefits.

The NQAI Framework – Substituting process for outputs.

The NQAI Framework is presently the dominant paradigm used to describe third level education in Ireland. While the Universities have been somewhat reluctant to implement this Framework, the Institutes of Technology have enthusiastically embraced it. Below are some comments critiquing the Framework.

The NQAI Framework purports to be an instrument which improves the educational process. This assertion is grounded on the proposition that the Framework renders the outcomes of learning demonstrable, measurable and comparable. However, embedded within this claim is a particular understanding of education itself. The Framework is not a neutral device for improvement but imports a specific and contestable philosophy of education.

1. The NQAI Framework conceptualises education as an activity which results in demonstrable and measurable outputs. Achieving these outputs is regarded as the objective of the learning activity. The claim is that these outputs can be identified in advance of beginning the learning and can furthermore be rendered into assessable achievements at the conclusion of the process.

In fact, far from obvious or apparent these are ideologically laden assertions regarding the nature of education. It may be more appropriate to argue that education involves a process of discovery which cannot in point of fact culminate within a modular time-frame and that an appropriate assessment tool is obliged to reflect that reality. In this sense, all learning outcomes cannot in principle be measurable. Aspects of the learning may be of course, and have always been, but there must be a recognition of the limitation of assessment in capturing the totality or even trajectory of learning. The outcomes of education and of any specific module should surely be to develop thinking, critical engagement with reality, reflection and autonomy. None of these may be adequately captured in any assessment tool yet these may represent the most important medium and long term learning outcomes.

2. Not only does the NQAI Framework contract the intellectual field of learning to measurable outputs it also contracts the temporal field within which learning is assumed to occur. The Framework, together with its vehicle of delivery the module, assumes learning outputs to be achieved within constrained time horizons. The preferred 13-week modular vehicle imposes temporal restrictions on learning and exploration. The assessment horizon is always close enough to cast a shadow and orientation on the learning process. This again accentuates the assumption that the assessment is the objective of the educational activity. This results in the real likelihood that assessment and assessment criteria will effectively dominate the learning and reflective processes of the student.

3. The consequence is that instead of learning as a shared activity of exploration between student and teacher it is instead rendered into the attainment of pre-determined output measurables within a specific time horizon. There is clearly a particular educational philosophy at work here. The outcome descriptors recommended by the NQAI represent the logical consequence of such an approach. Here, language itself is constrained and constricted so that all modular outputs can be described in comparable terms within a mass production paradigm. The implied model for this is McDonaldisation whereby key concepts such as predictability, measurability and a version of efficiency become unquestioned values to be operationalised in pre-set menus, bite-sized nuggets of consumable service and rapid and sequential delivery.

The inevitable result is to reduce the complexity of education and, indeed, of the world with which education engages and seeks to enrich, into a simplified set of technical challenges to be resolved within 13-week sequences of input-output information delivery. While this model greatly assists bureaucratic management of the process it does irreparable damage to education itself.

Hence, I submit that the worldview on which the NQAI Framework is posited be critiqued in terms of its core rationality. The Framework does not assist in accurately describing or facilitating the education process. Instead it creates a reductionist version of education and replaces the preferred ideal of the critical student-citizen with that of the compliant student-consumer.