Fergus Finlay: The Constitution must protect dignity as a right, not just an aspiration

Ireland demands loyalty from citizens but offers little in return — especially for children with special needs and the elderly

'If the crisis facing children and families with special needs ought to make us angry, the treatment of older frailer people in the care of our State needs to make us deeply ashamed.'

What are my fundamental obligations as a citizen of Ireland? The Constitution spells out two, in Article 9, and it uses the word fundamental to describe them. I must be faithful to the nation and loyal to the State. In addition, if I am a parent, I have some additional duties in relation to the welfare and education of my children.

None of that seems unreasonable to me. I’m proud of being Irish, never wanted to live anywhere else, always wanted to ensure that my children and their children had the same sense of pride as I have. But I’ve always wondered why the drafters of our Constitution never thought that the country might have the occasional duty to its citizens and all the people who live here.

There’s an aspiration for sure, in the preamble to the Constitution, where it talks about the common good … “so that the dignity and freedom of the individual may be assured” (that’s the only use of the word dignity in the entire document) … And later, in Article 45, the document talks passionately about the need to protect the economic interests of the weaker sections of the community, and, where necessary, “to contribute to the support of the infirm, the widow, the orphan, and the aged.” 

But it’s well-meaning blather, that article, because it makes clear that the principles it sets out are for guidance only and can never find their way into a court

 Nowhere in our Constitution is there set out what the fundamental duty of the State must be to its people. Dignity is an aspiration, not a right. Protection is something we’d love to do, but aren’t obliged to do. Support of “the infirm and the aged” is desirable, but strictly limited by what we have decided our priorities are.

It’s partly because of all that that I find myself torn all the time between my loyalty to the State and my sense of shame at the behaviour of the State. I don’t know whether it’s a cruel or a mean State or just incompetent, completely unable to order its priorities. Maybe it’s to do with our history and our sort of inbuilt sense that we deserve only the bad things. But it can be deeply shaming at times.

I watched the news at the weekend as a group of parents protested at the failure of our State to guarantee their children a school place at the start of the next academic year. These are all children with special needs whose lives will be affected years into the future if they don’t get a decent start now. And the cruel irony facing these children is that they are supposed to be protected both by the Constitution and the law.

The Constitution gives them an absolute right to an education up to the age of eighteen. It’s absolute, guaranteed — one of the few basic rights every child has. But only, it transpires, if they go to court to get it. But wait, there’s also the law. We passed an act in Ireland giving children with additional educational needs the legal right to an individual education plan, based specifically on an assessment of their individual needs.

That act became law 21 years ago — 21 years ago — but that bit of the act, the bit these kids need the most, has never been commenced to this day. Isn’t it the height of cynicism to give children a legal right to the thing they need the most, and then ensure it can never be enforced? Now and for the last three years the Department of Education, rather than commencing the act, has been undertaking a “review” to “make it fit for purpose”. The so-called review is surrounded by gobbledegook and has so far failed to produce a single recommendation.

And year after year, as predicably as the clock, families have to take to the streets in crisis. Solutions will be found for some children at the last minute, and the issue will fade from the front pages. Until next year.

Nursing homes scandal

But if the crisis facing children and families with special needs ought to make us angry, the treatment of older, frailer people in the care of our State needs to make us deeply ashamed.

I watched the RTÉ Investigates programme about two nursing homes run by a multinational company in Ireland with mounting fury, and yes, shame. I actually found myself scarred by the programme.

This was about the people whose work and taxes over their lifetimes contributed to my education, the upbringing of my family, the wealth of our nation. The role of that generation in our development has been immense. Now they are old. Some are ill, many are frail, and many are alone.

As their reward, we’ve handed them over as part of a multinational profit centre. When I looked up the company that runs these homes I found an organisation that made a gross profit of around €740m on what they call “sales” of more than five and a half billion. That’s global of course. In Ireland, their “sales” derive from the elderly people who live in their 24 nursing homes. For every resident there is roughly an income of €75,000 a year, and they have capacity for 2,400 residents. That is, give or take, around €180m from Irish “sales”.

These are mind-boggling figures and most of them are easy to find — you can look them up online at emeis.com. 

Mind you if you just look at the figures and the investment jargon, you could be forgiven for thinking you were looking at a multinational selling beer or ice-cream, and not a company in the world of care or service

And we know now. I’ve been in many nursing homes in Ireland, public and private. Some are great, some are very far from great. But when we decided to outsource as much as we could of the care of older, frailer people who can no longer live at home, we undertook to pay for the basics — food, shelter, that sort of thing. But we weren’t prepared to underwrite the cost of dignity. We left that to the goodwill of the providers.

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There’s no point in blaming a multinational company, or any number of multinational companies for that matter. We sent for them. We told them we needed somewhere to send our old folk and get them looked after. We never said you must employ adequate numbers of staff at decent rates of pay and ensure that they are trained and supervised so that skills like empathy grow, and staff are never overburdened. We just negotiated monthly rates and tried to limit the involvement of the State as much as possible.

But we’re the richest country in the world. Isn’t it time to go back and think again? Stop aspiring to dignity in the Constitution — put it in there as a right. A right for people with a disability. A right for children with additional needs. A right for older people who have become frail after a lifetime of contributing. Let’s figure out how to put dignity in our Constitution and stop constantly shaming ourselves.