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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
4 0 Nov/Dec 2016
A
WOMAN IN POVERTY is damned from two
perspectives when it comes to pregnancy.
She can’t afford to continue a pregnancy but
she can’t afford to stop it either. Constitu-
tional reform; investing in women; trusting
women; reversing austerity; treating all mothers equally;
addressing poverty, low pay and childcare and all the
other social and economic issues - are part of the politics
of motherhood and choice in women’s lives.
In our ‘Repeal the 8th’ debate we need to make links
to a different section of the Constitution, Article 41.2.
This prioritises a woman’s domestic role over her labour
market participation by unambiguously implying that
a woman’s place is in the home. Repeal the 8th needs
to make links with the reality of a contemporary politics
of motherhood based on Article 41.2. The values
informing this Constitutional Article are still widely and
deeply held and shape the politics of motherhood
today. They are reflected in current policies on child
income support, lone parents, homecare tax credit, tax
individualisation and childcare.
Economic independence and women’s access to, and
control of, economic resources are key to understand-
ing women’s choices and the barriers to women’s
choices. Crisis Pregnancy Agency research has
established that economic factors mediate a woman’s
pregnancy in complex way: “the balance between the
‘value’ and the ‘cost’ of a child is important in shaping
fertility decisions”.
Poverty and financial dependence impede women’s
ability to act on a range of choices, not least those asso-
ciated with reproductive health including her right to
choose to have a child.
Poverty is a barrier to having children as it may make
it impossible to pay for food. 10% of Irish people expe-
rience food poverty. They have problems meeting basic
needs including health, housing, and children’s educa-
tion. Austerity has made people more likely to
experience poverty and the recently loosened purse
strings have yet to dispense much to those who need
resources most.
Precarious jobs, bogus self-employment, if-and-
when contracts, casual hours, low-hour jobs and
internships all make pregnancy a non-viable option.
Young people, women and migrant workers are most
likely to have such jobs. Being pregnant and an
employee is precarious. There has been an increase in
unfair dismissals of, and discrimination against, preg
-
nant women. Being self-employed and pregnant is
often the foundation for stress and poverty.
Poverty
shapes abortion
The values informing the Constitutional
recognition of the special place of
women in the home shape the politics
of Irish motherhood today.
by Mary Murphy
POLITICS
Nov/Dec 2016 4 1
A 2016 study found 43% of
women using the abortion pill,
could not afford to continue the
pregnancy and 34.6% struggled
to cover the £70 donation
Poverty, and related lack of access to economic inde-
pendence act as a constraint on a woman’s capacity or
right to choose not to have a child.
The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission
(IHREC) argues that the high cost of prescription and
non-prescription contraceptive items interferes with
the right of men and women on low incomes to obtain
affordable contraception and to enjoy their right to ade-
quate reproductive health. Cost deters young adults
from using contraception. The need to get a GP for
renewal of a prescription for a contraceptive pill acts
as a further barrier.
Once a woman living in poverty falls pregnant,
accessing the finance needed for an abortion is a bar-
rier. Borrowing from informal or formal sources, money
lenders or credit unions, is rarely an option. Austerity
has acutely affected the extent and depth of financial
exclusion. Small-scale debt is now part of many house-
holds’ day-to-day finances. There is little capacity to
absorb unexpected one-off costs. Informal sources of
credit are exhausted.
Money lenders (legal and illegal) and other forms of
high-cost credit are used when conventional credit is
no longer available. Such sources offer loans at exor
-
bitant interest rates and often with far more serious
risks. Credit Unions’ ability to make small-scale loans
accessible is diminishing, due to increased regulation
and a change in the Credit Union ethos.
A 2016 study found 43% of women using at-home
medical termination of pregnancy through online tel-
emedicine, the abortion pill, could not afford to
continue the pregnancy. Indeed 34.6% struggled to
cover the £70 donation. These women were also more
likely to lack emotional support.
Financial control is another restraint. Some women
in well-off households do not have access to their own
income or control of their own time or space.
To make choices to get pregnant or avoid pregnancy
real, women need the practical capability to implement
those choices. Debates must reflect this or lose rele-
vance.
ON WOMEN IN THE
ARTICLE 41.2 OF THE CONSTITUTION
.. ° In priculr, he Se recognises
h by her life wihin he home, womn gives
o he Se suppor wihou which he
common good cnno be chieved.
. . ° The Se shll, herefore, endevour
o ensure h mohers shll no be obliged by
economic necessiy o engge in lbour o he
neglec of heir duies in he home.
4 2 Nov/Dec 2016
O
N 10 October the Finance Ministers of ten EU
countries announced that they had reached
agreement on the ‘core engine’ of a European
Financial Transactions Tax (FTT). The FTT,
often called a Robin Hood Tax, is a small tax
on the financial sector to raise revenue from certain
financial transactions, such as trading in shares and
derivatives. This tax is designed to increase public
investment and to reduce harmful financial trading by
short-term speculators.
The EU Tax Commissioner, Pierre Moscovici, hailed the
result as a crucial show of solidarity to help “finance
public goods such as development or the fight against
global warming”. Officials have now been told to draw
up a legal text for the proposed tax.
Belgium, Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Aus
-
tria, Portugal, Slovenia and Slovakia agreed to adopt the
FTT. Before this October meeting of Finance Ministers,
many would have agreed with our Finance Minister’s pes-
simistic statement in September that: “I do not see that
there is going to be agreement to any particular financial
transactions tax emerging from the enhanced co-oper-
ation”. But, he was wrong.
The FTT is going to happen, though Minister Noonan
remains determined to exclude us both politically and
financially. A key turning point in the progress made
appears to have been the Belgian government’s deci-
sion, under a lot of public pressure, to support an
Austrian compromise FTT proposal. After this, the reti-
cent Slovenian and Slovakian governments came
around. There are still some details to work out but
according to campaigners and those inside the political
discussions only a major disaster will prevent the adop
-
tion of the FTT.
The upcoming finance ministers’ meetings in Novem
-
ber and December should pave the way for final adoption
of a legal text in June 2017. After this, each participating
country is to adopt the tax though a finance bill. The
prospect of raising cold hard cash is getting tantalisingly
close. The main outstanding issue appears to be the
actual rates for the tax. Over the next couple of months,
campaigners will be pushing for rates that are high
enough to raise meaningful revenue and to discourage
short-term speculation.
The campaign for a global FTT is building momentum.
The German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble has
indicated that he intends to put the question of a FTT on
the agenda of the next G20 summit, which Germany will
be chairing in 2017. In the US there are indications that
the Democrats’ presidential nominee, Hilary Clinton,
may be much more supportive of the idea of a FTT than
previously understood.
On 29 September Thomas Pringle TD asked Michael
Noonan if he would back the European FTT. In his reply
the Minister restated the, by now quite stale, Irish posi
-
tion. The government believes that it would be better to
have a global FTT than a regional one. The Minister is
worried about ‘flight risk’ as traders move countries to
avoid the tax.
Now it looks like not only will there be a FTT, one that
includes valuable provisions to counter any tax-avoid-
ance strategies, but the campaign for a global tax is
gaining ground. So where does that leave Minister Noo-
nan’s arguments for keeping Ireland out of a FTT? In
September the Minister told Deputy Pringle that “the
position is as I have stated and we are not contemplat-
ing a change at present”. Perhaps now that the position
has changed he could contemplate in greater depth.
The Irish campaign for a European and global FTT has
been calling on the government to join its European part-
ners in introducing a FTT and to campaign for a global
tax. Our demands have not changed. Over the next year
our focus will be on increasing public pressure on the
government to join the new European FTT and throw its
weight behind the expanding global movement.
A Robin Hood Tax would be good for Ireland. We need
the significant revenue it would raise to tackle the press-
ing challenges we face in renewal of our public services,
eliminating poverty, addressing climate change and ful
-
filling Ireland’s overseas aid commitments. Ireland
needs to reupholster its international standing on tax.
The FTT can deliver vital income as well as help build our
reputation as a country committed to tax justice.
Anna Visser is a member of the organising committee of
the Irish Robin Hood Tax Campaign (www.robinhood
-
tax.ie) which is supported by Claiming our Future.
Robin Hood is alive
The main outstanding issue on the
financial transactions tax appears to
be the actual rates for the tax.
by Anna Visser
In September
Noonan, who frets
over ‘flight risk’,
said he did not
see a financial
transactions tax
emerging from
enhanced co-
operation. But, he
was wrong.
POLITICS
Nov/Dec 2016 4 3
“I
N THE USA the word ‘planning’ is still seen as
unpatriotic”. This was the pre-Trump-election
closing gambit of Columbia Professor and eco-
nomic advisor to Bernie Sanders, Jeffery D Sachs. He was
in Dublin on a whistlestop tour to talk about the UN Sus-
tainable Development Goals (SDGs). His closing remark
nailed the deep-rooted problem underpinning our sus
-
tainability crisis.
During his address to business leaders gathered at an
event organised by Business in the Community in late
October, Sachs spoke of what could be seen as the
essential contradiction we continue to face globally. It is
a paradox of governance. Together, the international
community has set out these 17 global sustainable
development goals. Yet we have no plan to deliver them.
We think the ‘market’ will do it for us.
Despite compelling science, and the 24 years of lost
opportunities since the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro,
we are becoming trapped in a circular logic that has
embedded this “market” into the entirety of our eco
-
nomic and social structures. According to Sachs, this
has generated a dangerous blind spot, a
kind of collective madness, where we
become “indifferent to our fate”, and
that of our species, so long as we
can keep some semblance of nor-
mality and business as usual.
At the heart of this problem is
the derogation of responsibility
for agency and planning to
some invisible market hand. It
seems, to his perspective, that
the history of the Cold War still
casts a long shadow. The decades of
failed state plans, notably the “5 year
economic plans” in the USSR and other
communist states, meant that planning became
a pseudonym for inefficient and ineffective use of
resources, and a byword for corruption. Yet it was a
visionary plan, accompanied with substantial resources,
in the aftermath of World War II which saved Europe. The
Marshall Plan channelled $12bn into Europe and enabled
it to recover from the war. The alternative would have
plunged Europe into decades of further turmoil and pos-
sibly more war.
This kind of large-scale planning, as a mind-set, has
to put the problem and the solution, not the delivery
mechanism, at the centre. In Sachs-speak, it has to
establish the “production possibility frontier curve” or
total vision of what’s possible. If simple market logic can
help us to achieve that, fine. However, there is plenty of
evidence that such a logic is actually limiting our vision
of the possible.
This market logic does not help when it comes to the
most critical questions - such as how do we recognise
the paramount importance to all of a stable atmosphere.
Markets have driven us to a point where we are rich, but
we can’t muster up enough shared resources to meet the
most essential needs. To answer such questions a dif-
ferent mind-set is urgently required, centred on the
common good and a common plan.
The SDGs in and of themselves are not a plan or a
strategy. They are a set of worthy and universally agreed
objectives. They don’t prioritise or set out a sequence of
actions required like a good plan does. They do not, for
example, elevate environmental sustainability as a pre-
requisite to the other goals. During his lecture to UCD
students Sachs recognised this need to prioritise and
did not shy away from pointing out that “Ireland does
not have a climate change plan yet, not a real one
anyway, which reads like Ireland exists”. He lamented
that rich OECD countries continue to fail in their promise
to share resources with those dying of hunger,
despite the fact it would cost so little.
“Most estimates would say it costs 3%
of global income per year to deliver
these goals. We waste so much
money on frivolous things we
would not even miss it”.
Emergencies can focus the
mind. The recent announcement in
Nature that we have now breached
the determinant 400 parts per mil
-
lion in CO2 emissions is all the
evidence we need to know that we face
disaster. Markets, unfortunately, will not
address this, for markets thrive also in disas
-
ters. Failure to address climate change is therefore a
failure of planning and agency and not a market failure
issue.
What will save us is an approach based on problem-
solving, human agency and long-term thinking. We
urgently need a global plan and politicians with the lead-
ership qualities to drive a vision. We need to overcome
history’s long shadow which has blinded us to the capac-
ity to plan at scale in the interests of the common good.
We might even take the risk that some of the planning
might not work out. This can hardly be worse than the
current market-driven gallop towards the emissions cliff.
Lorna Gold is Head of Policy and Advocacy with Trócaire
...especially for climate
What will save
us is an approach
based on problem-
solving, human agency
and long-term
thinking
by Lorna Gold
4 4 Nov/Dec 2016
A
STRENGTHENING OF the social dimension of
the European Union was supposed to be cen-
tral to Jean-Claude Juncker’s European
Commission Presidency. The European Pillar
of Social Rights (EPSR) is his key objective in
trying to recalibrate the European Union as a social and
caring union of equals. Once established, the EPSR is to
become a framework defining the fundamental values
and principles on social rights shared at European level,
on which policies would be based.
The EPSR was formulated to provide a response to the
social crisis which followed the financial crisis in Europe.
The reform programmes and austerity which was foisted
upon Member States, Ireland included, severely dam-
aged economic development and led to huge increases
in social inequality. This economic and social breakdown
has become one of the biggest threats to the European
project and has been further exacerbated by Britain’s
decision to leave the union. As a result, there has been
a renewed focus in Brussels on addressing, or appear
-
ing to address, these issues: reinforcing the social
dimension of the EU.
The first gauge of what this social Europe will look like
is to be found in a Commission EPSR communication doc-
ument published earlier this year. Broken into three
sections, the EPSR seeks to create equal opportunities
and access to labour markets, fair working conditions,
and adequate and sustainable social protection. These
three sections seek to create what the European Com-
mission calls a ‘social triple A’ for the EU.
They are noble aspirations but that is all. The EPSR will
not be enshrined in law through any European Treaties.
There will be no legal basis to achieve the aims set. It
was the same with social elements of Europe 2020.
There are certain progressive elements to the commu-
nication. These include encouraging lifelong learning,
addressing the gender pension gap, and disability
rights. However, the core issue is this: charged with
responsibility for and the opportunity to ameliorate the
social cost of the crisis, the European Commission stops
short of guaranteeing the social rights it says are
needed.
The most damning aspect to the EPSR is the subordi
-
nation of the social to the economic. At almost every
stage in the proposal the social rights outlined are sub-
ordinated to the primacy of the economy. Examples of
this are manifold in the Commission communication.
Annex 12, for example, calls for healthcare systems to
be cost effective ‘in order to improve... their financial
sustainabil-
ity”. Annex 14
calls for the
duration of
unemploy-
ment benefits
to preserve
“incentives for a
quick return to
employment”. Working
conditions and workers’
rights are another area of concern
where the communication calls for
“flexible and secure labour contracts” and “flexibility in
the conditions of employment...”.
The central issue with the European Commission’s
approach to the EPSR is that they call for increased social
rights on one hand, yet they ensure such a progression
will either not happen, or be hindered, by trying to make
it compatible to market demands. It is for these reasons
that it is far from clear how the EPSR, as currently pro
-
posed, can deliver on its goal of creating a more social
Europe.
It is time for policy makers in Brussels to stop consid
-
ering the social rights of European citizens as a lower
class of rights. There was no problem when powers of
economic competence were assumed by the EU (opposed
by me). The statutory nature of social rights must be sim-
ilarly protected and enshrined.
Those involved in formulating policy at EU level, par
-
ticularly those responsible in the Council, the European
Commission, and the European Parliament must create
a new vision of how we view the economic and the social.
There has to be agreement and a move towards a situa-
tion where social policy is not considered a burden to
economic growth, but rather the two are considered to
be symbiotic.
If it is to be successful and deliver on its stated aims,
the EPSR has to be radically rethought. Thankfully the
opportunity is available to influence and shape the
EPSR. Throughout 2016, the European Commission will
discuss the content and role of the European Pillar of
Social Rights with national authorities, social partners,
civil society and citizens. The outcome of this debate
should feed into a final text with teeth. It is my hope that,
through this process, the EPSR can be realigned so as to
guarantee social rights in the manner that citizens
deserve, to address the serious social injustices
throughout the EU.
EU denies symbiosis
of economic with other rights
Juncker’s European Pillar actually
relegates Social and Environmental rights
by Lynn Boylan, MEP
There was no
problem when
economic powers
were assumed by
the EU (opposed by
me) but statutory
nature of social
rights must be
similarly protected
Social Europe
needs teeth
POLITICS
