Sarah Clancy: Government must invest in communities to build wealth
The fishing village of Quilty in Co Clare. Poverty in Clare will only be eradicated when these programmes are accompanied by sustained, planned investment in infrastructure and services.
Yesterday, Clare Public Participation Network launched its report ‘Towards an Anti-Poverty Strategy for Clare' at Buswell’s hotel in Dublin. This report, researched and written by Dr Conor McCabe, was commissioned by 6 community groups comprised of people who experience poverty and exclusion in County Clare. These groups include Travellers, people with disabilities, older people, women, carers, lgbtq+ people, migrants, asylum seekers, and people who experience socio-economic inequality in County Clare. They made up the steering group for this project.
Arguably this group, most of whom are already overstretched and under-funded have, with the detailed help of their researcher and their own expertise, produced one of the best pieces of work on the socio-economic context of contemporary life in that place that is often referred to as ‘rural Ireland’. The report covers a huge amount of ground and data, much of it primary research that had to be done to even paint a picture of life in Clare. However, if there are two main findings from the report they are these:
That people who experience social exclusion in Clare understand it — they know why, they know what is missing, and they fully understand how the issues they deal with intersect.
They know that it costs money and time to be poor or disabled, or a single parent, that courses and education are not an answer to a lack of infrastructure, that care work is undervalued, gendered, and — often in Clare — necessary care is unavailable to those who need it for that very reason, and that taking on low wage insecure work is a risk if you have a family depending on you, or if you have a disability that causes you expense.
Secondly, traditional anti-poverty programmes which focus on improving and helping individuals will not eradicate poverty in Clare. Poverty in Clare will only be eradicated when these programmes are accompanied by sustained, planned investment in infrastructure and services. Empowerment classes will not compensate for the fact that Clare has as our report proves, fewer doctors (33%) fewer dentists (50%) less social housing (27% ) even than national averages.
As noted in our report, the consultancy firm KPMG provided the analysis on which the housing section of Clare County Council’s new draft county development plan is based — our community groups don’t know one single person who was consulted about this analysis. As one person joked: no one who lives in a house in Clare was asked about housing in Clare.
Jokes aside, huge resources are being put into the pockets of consultants to make plans for Clare, more than €22 million in the last five years, and yet we still do not have accurate data or statistics on the lives, livelihoods, housing, employment, enterprise and access to services for people in the county — and policy is being made without this information.
Clare PPN received funding from the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission to work on this report and to secure the services of Dr McCabe for it — the amount of that funding was €17,000. With that fund, we have managed to bring a huge amount of information into the public domain. It’s our job now with the media’s help to make sure that decision-makers pay attention to it.
We also expect some eyebrows to be raised that a group of people experiencing inequality in Clare are calling for re-examinations of the national planning framework and national development plan, both of which see Clare out in the cold in terms of investment in infrastructure and sustainable economic development, but really this is where we are at.
Our communities know that given the climate crisis we are facing some of the biggest changes to our way of living that most of us have ever experienced. In our report we have shown how Clare in particular is exposed to a range of risks from both climate change and climate action, with our farming, transport, and home heating systems particularly in need of change, not to mention geographic issues such as flood risk which will disproportionately affect Clare.
We see no evidence that there are any action plans in place based on real data that have the capacity to reduce existing poverty in Clare. And certainly, we see no planning framework which seeks to properly protect our communities from these forthcoming changes. As our report notes, we are in need of a transition plan for our communities but one defined much differently than that currently being used by Government.
Our report clearly shows that within Ireland and even within the county, an individual’s socio-economic rights are not equally realised. A person’s right to health or housing for example less likely to be vindicated in Clare than elsewhere. These findings mean a change in approach is needed. Even though it may seem as if we have bitten off more than we can chew, our groups will be working to try and ensure those changes happen: that we move towards sustainable economic and social policies that understand that economic development is only valuable when it improves the lives of communities. The national development plan cannot ignore the fact that inconvenient as we may be, people of all types and walks of life live in our rural towns and villages, and hinterlands.
We are calling for an end to policies that see us waiting beside the table of businesses for them to drop us a few crumbs of infrastructure or public services, whilst extracting the good and life out of our communities. Our human rights should not depend on whether it is profitable for someone to provide them. Our government, whoever they are, needs to invest directly in our wellbeing and in our rural communities; it is the job of government to redistribute wealth and provide for society. We are a small, wealthy country that seems to be wedded to scarcity politics, we need government to understand that investing directly in communities is investment. It is wealth building and we need them to do it.
The fact that this report is coming from Co Clare, where almost a century ago the Shannon Scheme which led to the electrification of Ireland was established, is poignant. We urgently need a bit of that ambition rediscovered. Our community groups do a huge amount to make life in Ireland better for many. However, they cannot and should not be expected to compensate for lack of state investment and services. Anyone reading our report will find heart-breaking testimony from communities under pressure. People shared these stories to seek change, not pity. It’s time for our governments to stop shirking their responsibilities and leaving the survival of our communities in the hands of the market.
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