If anyone can reform our social welfare system, Joan Burton can

DEAR Joan

And then, all of a sudden, all hell broke loose. I didn’t understand it when it happened and I don’t understand it now.

All sorts of commentators appeared suddenly from the woodwork to cry foul. Not one of those commentators had demanded in advance of the election that you should be in the Department of Finance. Quite a few of them had spent a good deal of the election campaign sneering at you, especially in the light of your battle with Vincent Browne.

In fact there was a fairly widespread assumption that you’d been damaged by the election campaign itself. More than a few of the usual suspects had to swallow hard (that’s as close as they ever get to admitting they were wrong) when you topped the poll in Dublin West and became not just the first woman, but the first person, to be elected to this Dáil. And you were well ahead of the three men, media darlings all, who trailed in behind you.

Then when you were picked as one of the negotiators of the programme for government, we all knew you were a cert to be in the Cabinet. But why anyone would assume that you or anyone else was guaranteed a particular portfolio, I don’t understand. It’s never been a feature of Irish politics that anyone can aspire with certainty to the job they shadowed in opposition.

In fact, it’s frequently a bad idea for someone who has been an opposition spokesperson to succeed the minister they had been marking. It’s too easy for them to become institutionalised and too hard for them to make change. I know when I worked in politics it was always considered wiser not to appoint the shadow to the job they had been shadowing. In fact, you know that from your own experience.

And yet for reasons I can’t fathom, people who should know better decided there and then that you had been shafted. I’m sure you were surprised at the portfolio you were offered and had a bit of mental adjustment to do (in that really classy interview you did with Charlie Bird on Saturday, you said it took you a full 60 seconds to make the mental adjustment).

And I’ll bet you were secretly disappointed too. But I imagine Eamon Gilmore would rather be Taoiseach, with a lot more jobs to appoint people to, than Tánaiste. That’s what the people decided. You know, I suspect, that it would never have occurred to Gilmore to shaft you — why would he want to shaft one of his negotiators? He thought he was picking, if you’ll pardon the expression, horses for courses.

Anyway, you’ve dealt with the issue with both class and grace. Which is more than can be said for some of the remarks I’ve heard. One RTÉ presenter during the week said that housekeeping and kids had been reserved for women members of the Cabinet. Another, Susan McKay of the National Women’s Council (who normally makes a lot of sense) said you had been shafted because Brendan Howlin was a safe pair of balls.

Hello? Two weeks ago I wrote here that it was important that there should be more women in this government than any previous one — and that the talent was there in abundance. It is deeply disappointing that people like Roisin Shortall, Catherine Byrne, Jan O’Sullivan and Olivia Mitchell weren’t elevated to the Cabinet. Not only do they deserve it, but they have at least as much capacity as those who were appointed.

But that’s not a basis for sneering at the people who are in the Cabinet. And it’s certainly not an argument for sneering at the portfolios assigned to you and to Frances Fitzgerald.

Kids? Can it really be true that there are people who believe that it’s ok to make a woman Minister for Children because it’s only “kids”? Did those people not read the Ryan Report? Have they forgotten already how we treated generations of children in Ireland?

Do they know that there was supposed to be an implementation plan, full of solemn commitments made by the entire Oireachtas after the Ryan Report was published? Vetting legislation, sexual offences legislation, the law relating to child protection – these are just a few of the areas where everyone agrees reform is urgent. But the main reason we’ve failed to do it is because of a lack of political accountability. Only a Cabinet minister can redress that balance.

And then there’s the little issue of child poverty. That’s the main reason I was so delighted you had been given the Social Protection portfolio, Joan.

One in 10 of our children live in consistent poverty. Scandalously, that figure jumped by half in the last year of the Fianna Fáil government, largely as a result of their social protection policies (or lack of them).

Children in consistent poverty are too often hungry, cold, without enough protein in their diet, inadequate clothing, and lives that don’t have a lot of hope or happiness. They also tend to be the early school-leavers, the kids who reach the age of 15 or 16 without being able to read or write properly.

They’re the kids whose lives can be changed by public policy, by effective targeting of social protection. You know this because you were one of the first people in Ireland to spot the problem – and a potential solution.

BACK in the early ’90s, when you were a junior minister in the Department of Social Welfare, you were the first politician to recognise that, if real reform of the social welfare system is to happen, there has to be a capacity for the social welfare system to talk to the revenue system. We have this absurd position in Ireland where both systems maintain huge databases of citizens and there is no link between them.

So, for example, there has been endless talk of reforming child benefit. At the moment, every family in Ireland, no matter how rich, is entitled to the same child benefit. It would make perfect sense that, for instance, people on higher incomes would be taxed on the child benefit they receive – and that would enable the system to be much more effectively targeted towards the elimination of child poverty. Higher child benefit could be paid where it’s most needed by spreading the income received from taxing higher earners.

But that can only be done by reconciling the two systems. Back in the ’90s, as I said earlier, you were the first politician to spot this, and to say publicly that this was one thing that needed to be changed.

I know full well it can’t happen overnight, but there is a chance here to implement the kind of fundamental reform that can change the system for ever, making it work to eliminate poverty rather than to perpetuate poverty traps.

The controversy of the last few days, and the way you’ve dealt with it, has immeasurably strengthened your authority. If anyone can reform the system, you can.

With best wishes

Fergus