Tánaiste, Labour needs to keep an eye on Bruton and Shatter

DEAR Tánaiste,I wanted to congratulate you on a really good speech to the party conference at the weekend.

It wasn’t an easy speech, and I’m guessing it wasn’t really aimed at the audience in the hall.

For example, you avoided some of the touches I probably wouldn’t have been able to resist if I’d been drafting it — no digs at the opposition, no sideswipes at some of the crazier policies they advocate. There wasn’t even a mention of the fact that Labour celebrated its 99th year by electing a President of Ireland — that would have guaranteed a roar from the crowd who remember how skilled Michael D used to be at winding up an audience.

There was a lot to celebrate at this conference. More Labour TDs, councillors and MEPs than have ever attended a party conference before. More young public representatives than ever in the party’s history. A much more united and cohesive party, despite the challenges being faced, than has often been the case in the past.

And you made the point yourself, Eamon, (and I noticed it in a piece by another commentator, Noel Whelan, whose views about Labour would be informed by a different bias than mine). Labour is clean.

Despite a series of investigative tribunals over two decade, not a whiff of political corruption has attached to the Labour Party. After decades when millions were made from the rezoning of land by compliant public representatives, and where regulation (of things like the beef industry, for example) was often corrupted, that’s something to be proud of.

But there was none of that triumphalism in your speech. And as I said, the speech was probably much more aimed at the television audience than at the likes of me. It was more in the nature of a progress report from Labour in government, and aimed at providing reassurance to voters who are concerned by, and often distressed by, the consequences of austerity.

In that sense the invocation of Labour’s values towards the end of the speech was inspirational. When you talked about the fact that Labour will reach its centenary later this year, you took the opportunity to restate some of those core values.

“The people who set up this party, and the people who joined it, came from humble origins,” you said. “They were people who possessed almost nothing, except the courage of their convictions. And what they wanted, was simple. Liberty. Freedom. The freedom to work. The freedom to have a home. The freedom to learn. Freedom for women. Freedom from poverty, hunger and disease. Freedom.”

And then you added, “And that is the cause to which we are called again. An Ireland where freedom and fairness are stitched into the fabric of our economy, and our politics. An Ireland where opportunity is the birthright of every child. An Ireland which makes and keeps a simple promise — that every child born here, can grow here, learn here, have opportunities here, make a life here, and grow old in the company of their friends.”

It was stirring stuff — it had me on my feet, anyway, and I was only watching on the telly. I thought about it afterwards, though, as I was reading some other stuff, and I figured I needed to say one additional thing to you.

There were other values that inspired the men and women who founded the Labour Party. Yes, the freedoms you talked about were core. But so was the idea of solidarity and the principle of equality. Throughout its history those have been, and remain, essential to the way we look at the world.

I’ve been reading a couple of things that make me wonder whether those values are under threat now, in an insidious sort of way. So I have an ulterior motive in writing to congratulate you on your speech. I think you need to keep a really close eye on Richard Bruton and Alan Shatter.

I know they’re close and good colleagues of yours in government, of course. But one of them has undertaken a “reform” of industrial relations machinery that will ultimately lead to the winding-down of the Equality Tribunal. And the other is in charge of the merger of the Irish Human Rights Commission and the Equality Authority. And I have to tell you, I’m worried about both measures.

There isn’t time here to go into a huge amount of detail. But Richard Bruton’s reforms are all about streamlining how complaints and disputes in the workplace — which can often be about forms of discrimination — are dealt with. All well and good — the mechanisms that have grown up over the years are frequently cumbersome. But there’s nothing in the document he has published about how equality is promoted in the workplace, or about how the broader issue of standards is dealt with. The case law that has built up in the Equality Tribunal, and its deep expertise in areas like gender discrimination, is in real danger of being lost altogether.

Neither is it clear how someone who is being discriminated against — and they can be people who live in fear — can get decent advice and support. In fact Minister Bruton seems to me to be proposing a system where nothing will happen unless an individual makes a complaint. And by the way, he’s thinking of charging up to €50 to anyone who wants to protect their rights.

Up to now, the job of providing support to individuals who feared discrimination was, generally speaking, carried out by the Equality Authority. I remember how outspoken we all were when the last government decimated the budget of that authority, to the point where its chief executive Niall Crowley resigned in protest. (Incidentally, that brave act remains one of the few examples in Irish history of a public servant making himself unemployed on a point of principle. Imagine how much better off we’d be if a few others had his courage.)

CROWLEY himself pointed out in a recent article that the number of cases supported by the Equality Authority declined by 78% between 2008 and 2010 — no doubt a reflection of the fact that its budget was savaged by a vindictive act of government. Now the Authority and the Human Rights Commission are to be merged, and there are disturbing signs that the primary reason for the merger is to save yet more money.

If it is the case that the Government is anxious to create a really effective, totally independent, and highly efficient agency to protect and develop human rights in Ireland, and to continue the work of ending discrimination, that’s to be welcomed. To be honest, Tánaiste, I think if that’s to happen, and we’re not to end up with a highly diminished approach to equality, you’re going to have to put your foot down rather firmly.

I don’t need to remind you that it was another Labour Minister, Mervyn Taylor, who planted the roots for a great deal of progress in relation to discrimination and equality with his ground-breaking legislation in the nineties. Another Labour legacy to be quietly proud of. And definitely one that has to be protected in our centenary year.