The malaise of our time - Government ill-prepared for change

IRELAND’S Catholic Church has endured over two decades of deserved criticism, facing well-founded accusations of hypocrisy and sheltering the most reprehensible individuals and practices, of hurting many of the most vulnerable people entrusted to its care.

It also exerted a legislative influence far beyond that which was appropriate in a truly inclusive society.

It has lost credibility and support. It has been forced to surrender its central place in formation of contemporary conscience. Compared to what it once was it is an afterthought, almost a relic of another time when different priorities held sway.

But when the history of our time and our great economic success comes to be written any honest conclusion will acknowledge the indispensable role played by the Catholic Church in educating the Irish.

Present interpretations suggest that the establishment of the International Financial Services Centre is a cornerstone of Celtic Tiger Ireland. Well, if it is, the great teaching orders of the Catholic Church are the foundations on which that cornerstone rests.

Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin yesterday blamed poor planning by the Department of Education and state agencies for the situation where families cannot secure school places for their children.

That these problems are, or have the potential to become, deeply divisive issues all around the country is the fault of nobody other than Government.

Report after report predicted, indeed encouraged, an influx of immigrants, ever-expanding suburbs and new dormitory communities all around the country. That these developments have taken place without provision of educational infrastructure is nothing short of scandalous and Minister Mary Hanafin you are to blame.

In recent days we have spoken of reform in medical, veterinary, dentistry and pharmacy education taking seven years. On another day we spoke of delays in the reform of cancer screening services taking a similar period. If any of the businesses that feed the Celtic Tiger operated on these time scales we would quickly find ourselves in a very cold and lonely place.

The delays in the provision of anticipated infrastructural needs has become one of the unavoidable themes of public debate.

Our transport options are unsatisfactory. Our staggeringly expensive healthcare is not delivering a service compatible with a modern European society. Our education system cannot cope with the basic expectations of all of our citizens. And in an economy described as knowledge-based broadband is still a rumour in swathes of the country. Frighteningly, our environmental and energy policies are in the hands of this culture of lethargy and indifference to any sense of urgency.

If there is to be criticism to the Catholic Church’s role in education it must be that it did not teach us to have the confidence and determination needed to resolve this growing scandal or to put the needs of our children before the ambitions of developers.

Government inability to prepare for anticipated change has become the malaise of our time.