2.3.3 The Pillars

In my work over 30+ years I have experienced many worthy, well-meaning initiatives, all costing a fortune, all doing great work staffed largely by very good people, but all influenced by the system or the thinking of the system and thereby disconnected from, and missing out on a cohort of families in whose lives chaos is more prevalent than the order necessary to avail of the supports offered by the initiatives.

Those families constitute the Focus Group, (who I already described as abandoned) by society in general.

Thinking about why this is so, i.e. so much effort and money going into something but getting so little return (and definitely influenced by my many years of street-work with young people and their families), I began to develop ideas around structures of society. 

That is; what or who are most influential and therefore to all intents and purposes, control decision making. Following some deliberation I came up with four Pillars that hold up or support the structures of society in Ireland.

(As an aside, I need to say here that this pertains to my native land, there may be different Pillars in different countries – though in many countries in the Western World I’d guess that a lot of what I will describe in the rest of this Sub-Chapter would hold true).

The Pillars are the entities that control and direct behaviour in society, (i.e. that influence society to the greatest extent), that constantly interact at many levels, that give the imprimatur to decisions, and by extension, decide how and where our limited financial resources will be allocated, and within that allocation, what and what not, or, more often, who or who not to favour!

Before I get into it I’d like to explain why some powerful entities are not Pillars.

When thinking about it a bit I considered some obvious ones, notably the Catholic Church, dominant sporting organisations, and private industry.  However, I did not include them because:

~ The Catholic Church:  In the past, this was a very powerful pillar in that it directly influenced Government decision-making. God was referenced in our iconic Proclamation of Independence in 1916.  When the first Dáil met in 1919 God was thanked for giving us courage to persevere through centuries of ruthless tyranny; and turned up again in our Constitution 21 years later!  However I believe that, nowadays, while religious orders fund and support many worthy organisations working with marginalised families, the established Church has lost so much power that it does not really control our country in respect of how decisions are made or resources are allocated.

~ Sporting Organisations: Modern national professional sporting organisations have a considerable amount of power in our society, and also have considerable influence and impact – not to mention wealth! However, while connections made playing sports can be very important to personal advancement in business, politics and even the public service, I do not believe that the organisations themselves have that much power in society in respect of allocation of resources to assist our Focus Group.

~ Private Industry: This one was difficult to decide on!  The private sector is very powerful, influences politicians and media, but needs (in theory anyway) to defer to state apparatus to get things done.  While there are many people in the private sector involved in initiatives to assist our Focus Group, the sector does not perceive itself to have any responsibility for same.  However – as I will be mentioning in the Chapter on Power And Control In Society – even though it isn’t included its values penetrate the Pillars enough for it to be very influential in terms of decision-making in society.

The next post will describe the four Pillars!

The Pillars of Irish society, as I see them, are The Media, Politics, The Civil/Public Service, and Academia. You can click on the links, if you like, to skip to those Sub-Chapters now but they might make a little more sense if this Sub-Chapter is read first.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I’d like to start by saying that it is not my intention to unduly criticise or disparage the Pillars – I would like you to remember that.

But if you are working within the Pillars, the content of this Sub-Chapter might challenge ideas that you have about your role in assisting the Focus Group – if you have such a role. Even if you don’t, the content may not at all fit with your experience so it could be thought-provoking or eye-opening! Or, alternatively, it might fit …….

Like my description of the characteristics of the Focus Group in the last Sub-Chapter my intention – while reflecting the realities of what I observe in the Pillars – is to be respectful and measured. Like I also said in the last Sub-Chapter, the last thing that I’d want is to exaggerate or be sensational.

Yet I believe that it is just as important in this Sub-Chapter as it was in the last to reflect reality – where something is at – rather than pretend that it is the way we’d like it to be.

And that is what I try to do not only here but in the entire website.

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Well – you may justifiably ask – who am I to write a discourse and/or critique of the Media, Politics etc. etc.?

While I’ve never been a journalist or studied media, I’m a keen reader/viewer of media outlets and I always have been – what I will write might make sense and equally it may not. You can decide for yourself!

I tried my hand at politics and while my time involved was short I think I picked up enough to have a strong opinion on the profession – and it’s impact on our Focus Group.

When it comes to the civil/public service, I’m on slightly firmer ground – I worked in the public service for a long time, and my work in the charity sector brings me into close contact with Government services.

I have never worked in academia but I spent a fair share of years in college as a student (4 full-time and 3 part-time years) so I have some notion of what academia is like. And, like the civil/public service, I come into contact with academia quite a bit in the course of my work.

They are the four Pillars, and I make an effort to portray them – and what they support (good and bad) – in a diagram below.

The Media           Politics        Civil/Public Service     Academia

Some aspects of Pillars’ behaviour is strange – and seem in a way not to make any sense. This is notable in financial decisions involving Government contracts. They always go to either the cheapest tender or the person/company with the most influence.

In my days in the public service I remember contracts being given to sub-standard providers when it would have been – in the long term – make more economic sense to choose better quality.

Take the example of food for Direct Provision Centres.  A huge multinational company might be cheaper, but giving a contract to a small local supplier would generate local employment, keep people off the dole, and even, perhaps, offer opportunities for the very people for whom the service is intended – those in the Centres themselves.

I know, I know, it’s easy for me to expound on what should be done, it’s another issue actually doing it.  Doing it requires creativity, taking a risk, and a bit of hard work.

And it also takes a lot more time!

I remember (once again, from my public service days) how easy it is to simply award a tender to the lowest bidder instead of putting a bit of effort into the preparation of the tender and then more work into convincing those holding the purse-strings that whatever is purchased has added, long-term value.

I will come back to this subject later when I will argue that the cost of preventative family support is far, far lower than the downstream cost of punitive sanctions (such as care homes or prisons) when members of families who need support but don’t get it drift into drug misuse and criminal behaviour.

On the other hand, sometimes – and amidst all the penny-pinching – under Freedom of Information requests, journalists discover that a Government body has paid way over the expected price for, say, property or land, or a service of some sort, but no-one ever seems to answer why.

Another kind of strange Pillars behaviour is that they set up entities to highlight aspects of injustice, unfairness, discrimination etc. that arise because of their own policies and practices. Here is an example of a Pillars-funded entity reporting negatively on practices that are a direct result of classic Pillars-type thinking. Real suffering by real people result from such actions (or inactions). While the IHREC are right to highlight such matters – and I have great respect for the work that they do – I fear that reporting on them will make little or no difference to those who are suffering!

While I will be giving examples of Pillars’ inefficiency, wastefulness etc. I acknowledge that in a proper democracy that ensures that ordinary people have a voice there will always a measure of inefficiency.

In fact, it might be argued that inefficiency is the corner stone of democracy.

For example one could give examples of many situations where the cost of a court case would be far more than cost of a law officer with absolute power appointed by a king or emperor deciding who was right and who was wrong.  No matter how wise or fair the appointed law officer is, in such a situation the parties to the dispute do not have independent advocates arguing for their clients and adhering to rules of law underwritten by a constitution voted on by all the people of the country – surely a necessity for true democracy.

What the website will argue is that the power structures and inefficiency of the Pillars (often referred to as red tape) is far in excess of what it needs to be, and that decision making involves virtually no risk; because excessive bureaucracy which inhibits, or even stops positive progress always seems to prevail.

And, crucial to the subject matter, I propose that, unlike those who can afford to pay and choose, the poor, almost always, (and particularly the Focus Group) have to accept what the Pillars think is good for them!

The belief that there are people in society, who can never aspire to being part of the mainstream, and who need assistance from the structures that hold up society has always been prevalent. (For example I can think of the quote attributed to St. Francis of Assisi the poor will always be with us). The modern welfare state is a product of such belief.

And since poverty is caused by the behaviour of humans, it can be said that it is a failure of society, of sorts.

The history of deprivation, alienation and powerlessness – causative factors in poverty – is too lengthy to go into here, but I am of the opinion that in any society, action by the Pillars (whatever they might be) to better the lives of the Focus Group, is probably the best we can do at any particular time or circumstance in our history.

So this Sub-Chapter is as much a statement about the difficulties that some families have, negotiating their way through the tangled web of the Pillars, as it is a commentary on the Pillars themselves.

And let me say at this point that the Pillars did a lot for me.  They gave me free (well – kind of free) education up to 18, and a job in the public service for many years which enabled my wife and I own a house and have a reasonably secure lifestyle that was a springboard for our children to be educated and get jobs.  Indeed, the last thing that I’d want is that this website would have a them and us flavour just to make it exciting.

As I stated previously I’d hope that excitement would come from the hope that all of us could work better to make a difference, and actually I’d really welcome practitioners of any rank or station within the Pillars engaging in discussion on the issues in the website.

I know (and have known) many fantastic people working within the Pillars who are as concerned about the well-being of the Focus Group as anyone, who are compassionate, motivated, and idealistic and use the power that is vested in them by their statutory offices to make very good things happen.

And some make efforts – once again within the limits of their brief – to share power.

However, despite the presence of the many good workers, one of the first things that I noticed (coming from a relatively comfortable middle-class background) when I began doing street-work was that the service that abandoned families (the Focus Group) get generally falls short of what they need.

And I also observed that many families in such situations don’t perceive themselves to really have a choice in respect of what they do get, or indeed about their own destiny.

I propose that the four Pillars have a symbiotic relationship with each other.

Symbiotic is like mutually beneficial, but there is a slight difference between the two terms.  Symbiosis implies that if the relationship breaks down it will damage one or more of the entities that are in the relationship.  (Mutually beneficial does not generally imply this, or at least not as strongly anyway).

Symbiosis within the Pillars is observed by following the process by which decisions are made, how boards, Oireachtas committees, enquiries, expert groups, advisors etc. are appointed and set up, how funding is allocated, how people move between one and the other – that is, public servants and/or academics become politicians, politicians and/or journalists become lobbyists [1], journalists become politicians etc. etc. It is also observed by noting what gets national attention and what doesn’t.

This probably works reasonably well for decisions in mainstream society, as people put up with the perceived unfairness and bias that is caused by what might be termed the cosiness between them all, (and complain a lot) but do little to challenge the structure which perpetuates it.

I will argue that the Pillars, perhaps unwittingly, and even in a well-meaning way, (but that doesn’t matter to the families who are the subject of this website), in respect of our Focus Group:

~ Foster a sense of dependence.

~ Dampen down or dilute innate wisdom, strength, creativity, and knowledge which are rarely if ever acknowledged not to mention valued.

~ Contribute to loss of self-esteem, confidence, and ultimately dignity.

In terms of intractable, or difficult-to-solve societal problems like crime and imprisonment or protection of vulnerable children, the symbiotic, self-perpetuating relationship between politics, academia, higher civil/public service and media searches for solutions by debating, unendingly, the issues of the day, on radio, TV and newspapers, thinking that the debate in the public eye actually achieves something. 

And following the endless debates, in taking action to solve the problems, they only look to people and entities that are deemed to be successful in the normal mainstream societal understanding of the term.

I will argue that by confining decision making to those who have academic qualifications and formal education, (and those who, as I just said, are successful as defined by the Pillars) and ignoring those who don’t, (or aren’t), the Pillars lose out on skill, creativity, intelligence, and most important of all, significantly higher level of tactical nous that many people who have more experiential than academic knowledge possess!

In the Initial Words post describing the Pillars, I said that the private sector was not one. However, its influence is substantial, and increasing as time goes on.

And it is not too much of an exaggeration to say that every time a solution to a serious social problem is left to the private sector it turns out to be a disaster.

I already referenced the research which was very critical of the privatisation of Probation Services in England in Chris Mills Child Protection Blog. And very recently, the cervical smear tests debacle was partly caused by a Government minister (at the time) awarding the contract for the tests to a US private entity against the advice of the Master of the Rotunda Hospital who urged that we do it in Ireland thereby enabling us firstly to have control and secondly build up expertise in our own country. Another disaster that had tragic consequences for so many families.

A very pertinent and contemporary example of this that has a direct negative impact on the Focus Group is placing the responsibility for housing in the hands of private property developers.  Another example might be giving private companies contracts for care homes for children.  I have met many practitioners working in such homes who have low morale.  Surely high morale is a prerequisite for practitioners who have responsibility for the well-being of vulnerable children.

While minding children is hardly a serious social problem, it nonetheless involves a social type situation that can be exploited for profit. The recent creche scandal highlights the dangers of entrusting care of vulnerable people – in this case children – to the private sector – as if we hadn’t learned enough from the scandals involving the care of the elderly.

I have often felt pressure by elements within the Pillars to pursue courses of action that I don’t feel were or are helpful to vulnerable children – because firstly they control the purse-strings, but also they insist that they know best and it is almost impossible to disagree with the sheer power of their arguments.

Ultimately, I will argue that what the Pillars tend to do, in favouring privatisation, is put a fox [2] in charge of chickens.  This is more prevalent than ever nowadays as privatisation of services that were always public is becoming more popular – as the market (like the Catholic Church many decades ago) claims it can do things better – letting the Government off the hook.

Because no matter how well-trained, well-intentioned or well-behaved the fox is, or how much he promises, instinct will eventually take over.  That is, if he is hungry, he will do what his instincts determine, and if chickens are harmed by his actions – well – that is just nature.

Some of the reasons that the Pillars might choose a fox or foxes, often in spite of much common-sense, dogs-in-the-street [3] type knowledge, might be that:

1. They are seduced by their empty promises.

2. They fulfil some ideological agenda that the Pillars have.

3. Decision makers do not think long-term.

4. They are beholden to them through old-boy networks or financial dealings.

5. The foxes may be even be favoured by academic research.

The foxes market themselves as economical and quick fix, unlike public servants who want secure jobs, pensions, and so are deemed uneconomic – or voluntary groups who are thought to be inefficient anyway.

One wily fox – of course, any fox worth his bushy tail has to be wily – was interviewed one night on TV and he said it all! He was asked about breaking promises that he made during election campaigns and he said, totally unapologetically, that’s what one does during elections.

I believe that this was a pretty honest reflection on the reality of the world of politics, and inadvertently contained a lot of insight into the well-intentioned, vague, broken promises world of the Pillars in general.

While being interdependent, each of the Pillars is unique, as will be described in the posts following.

[1]. A lobbyist is a persuasive, well-connected person who is employed by (usually) groups of powerful or wealthy people to pressurise politicians to spend money on whatever their area of interest is. This could be agriculture, education, academia, construction, big pharma, oil industry etc. etc. (I don’t know anyone who is given big money to lobby for the Focus Group)!

[2]. I generally don’t like using beautiful animals (like rats, vultures, vipers, worms, pigs, sheep, even chickens), to portray aspects of our human personalities that we don’t like, but I hope that the noble sionnach will forgive me in this case – the analogy was too attractive to pass……

[3]. More animalistic analogies – sorry dogs!