Fergus Finlay: Government would do well not to waste this cost of living crisis

Focus on these issues: a living wage, cost of travel, and the crippling expense of children's education

Many families are facing crippling costs at the moment and Government can implement changes to ease the the burdens they are facing.

Dear Ministers,

I’m writing to you all because I’m not sure which of you is in charge of the new crisis. We’re only just through the economic crisis caused by the pandemic, and thankfully we seem to have come out of that OK. But ye’ve barely had any time to take a breath before you’ve been hit by the cost of living crisis.

Anyway, I have three suggestions to make — on top of the things you’re already considering. They’re intended to be helpful, and they centre on the living wage, the cost of travel, and the crippling cost families will face in a few month’s time for their children’s education.

You know, I hope, how much this crisis is hurting. There are thousands of mothers all over Ireland living in fear now. It’s a more tangible and biting and immediate fear than the anxiety caused by Covid. 

The fear of not having enough in the cupboard for your children’s school lunch. The pain in the stomach caused by the arrival of the electricity bill. The choice that has to be made about asking your children to wash in cold water.

As you know better than most, Ireland is a rich country. One of the richest. 

It’s unthinkable, isn’t it, that in such a rich country, with a proud and long tradition of contributing to better lives for others, that parents have to make such choices, or to live in such fear.

And all the more unthinkable when experts are telling us that the inflationary pressure point we’re in now is supposed to be temporary. Temporary inflation, long-term suffering. Doesn’t make sense, does it?

And of course you have another consideration to bear in mind (in fact I suspect it’s at the top of your minds). It can only be a matter of time before a slew of wage claims land on your desks. People at work are not going to wait forever with wages frozen and bills climbing.

Price inflation has always led to wage inflation in the past and frequently that has led to a spiral of competing demands. Apart from the effect on the wider economy, you could be looking at enormous damage to the public pay bill and to rocketing increases in the cost of providing essential public services.

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The one pay increase you should be looking at seriously and immediately is in respect of the minimum wage. You have just increased the minimum wage to €10.50 an hour, and that’s some help. But the best advice available to you is that a living wage in Ireland needs to be set at €12.90 an hour.

The living wage is defined as a wage that enables someone at work to afford the essentials of life and a degree of personal dignity and freedom.

You need to agree to narrow the gap between the minimum wage and the living wage as quickly as possible — and certainly within the next two years.

That’s on the pay side. On the spending side it’s also incumbent on you to act fast and to act effectively. Whatever you do has to be seen to have a long-term beneficial impact for families, or at the very least to get them over the terrible bump in the road so many are experiencing. 

I know you’re hoping to achieve a lot with once-off measures, because you don’t want to start something now that you’ll still be paying for long after the worst of the crisis is over.

But I’m telling you — it would be well worth your while to make a few investments in the future that would forever lower the burden on families and make it easier for people to get by. This is one area where some radical decision now will pay economic, social, and political dividends into the future.

Making the right changes

Here’s one that you should announce right now, even though its effects won’t be felt for a few months.

When I worked in Barnardos, back in the day, we worked out that it would cost no more than around €100m to make it entirely free to go to primary school. That figure was never disputed by the Department of Education, and it represents a tiny fraction of the education budget.

But on the other hand, it represented a crushing and often terrifying burden for tens of thousands of families. 

It costs almost €400 to send a child to primary school. Picture: PA

Typically, the last time I saw detailed figures, it cost not far short of €400 to send a child to primary school — in other words, to give that child access to the one unfettered constitutional right he or she has. Half of that cost is made up of books and the so-called voluntary contribution.

The voluntary contribution needs to be replaced by a modest increase in school capitation fees, and the Government should decide now that all school books should be freely available in schools when children start their next terms. That’s not an expensive decision —it’s one that requires political will and a degree of implementation.

At the moment, there are thousands of customers for school books — and hundreds of arbiters (in the form of teachers) about what those customers should buy. All of that needs to be replaced by one customer — the education system. 

The pressure it would ease for tens of thousands of families would never be forgotten. Indeed, the minister for education who finally made primary education genuinely free would deserve a small but honourable mention in the history of the system.

Of course, that would make primary education free even for the children of the very rich, and no doubt the usual arguments about targeting resources will be made. But if there is one social right that ought to be universal, it’s the right to an education.

Travel charges

The other affordable thing to do right now is to put a simple price cap on every journey undertaken on public transport (and make all public transport to and from school free).

If the Government were to decide that every city bus, DART, or LUAS journey would cost no more than €1, and that no long-distance journey by train or bus more than €5, it would hugely incentivise the use of public transport, especially by commuters, and it would significantly ease the burden being caused by energy costs.

Those prices should stay in effect at least until oil prices start to stabilise or reduce. I suspect however that if it was tried as an experiment, and the environmental as well as societal impact measured over time, it could well be something worth prevailing with into the long term.

I know the Government is considering a number of immediate measures — this newspaper reported yesterday that a one-off social welfare payment is under active consideration. That’s welcome, of course it is. 

But changes that would have a lasting impact on quality of life, and that wouldn’t break the bank, need to be on the table too — even if they take several months to implement.

Sending your son or daughter to school should be a moment of joy and celebration, not a time of anxiety and pressure.

Let’s not waste the cost of living crisis — let’s fix that old injustice once and for all.