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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
Nov/Dec 2016 4 5
M
OST OF US dislike banks, especially but not
exclusively our own bank. And we do so not
just because they treat us so badly when
we deal with them but more generally
because of the economic devastation they
have inflicted on society. And we feel there is very little
that can be done about the current structure of banking
services in Ireland.
But the really wonderful news is that right now there
are moves afoot to establish a number of new regional
“public” banks, with the specific primary purpose of fos-
tering regional economic development. These represent
an exciting move away from banks focused on maximis-
ing shareholders’ value?
These public banks, ‘Sparkassen’ have existed in Ger-
many for 200 years dominating the financing of small
and medium sized businesses, which are the backbone
of the country’s formidable industrial success. And now
the international consulting arm of these German public
banks, the SBFIC (never mind
the acronym), is reaching out
to countries such as Ireland
to help set up similar banks
where development has been
curtailed because it is so dif-
ficult to borrow money.
The new public banks
(about 10 around the country)
will have a number of distinc-
tive features. First, each will
have a legal structure such
that it is not actually owned
by any shareholders and that the sale of the bank is
verboten. This will avoid the pressure on the bank to
make quick profits based on risky lending in order to pay
dividends. Also future governments or the trustees will
not be able to sell them off to raise revenue. The trustees
of such a legal structure might be, for example, the
regional local authorities.
Second, and very important, each regional public
bank will have a ‘public mandate’. Its main objectives
will include: the provision of finance to small and
medium sized business; provision of normal banking
services to everyone in their region; and the promotion
of savings. Note no mention of profit maximisation. Of
course any bank must be viable and operate in a sustain-
able way but annual surpluses will be used partly to fund
social and cultural projects in the region, with the bal-
ance retained to strengthen the bank’s balance sheet.
A third and interesting feature of the proposed public
banks is that each will be limited to its own region. For
example, in the south east one public bank might cover
counties Kilkenny, Carlow, Wexford and Waterford. Its
operations will be confined to those counties, taking
deposits and lending only within that catchment area,
driving regional development. Depositors will know that
their savings are helping to finance proper businesses
in their own area rather than some speculative develop
-
ment in God knows where.
Public banks have a lot in common with credit unions.
Both focus on the local population and the local econ
-
omy. It is expected that they will operate in close
co-operation and possibly share services such as IT.
Public banks will operate somewhere between credit
unions and commercial banks. They will lend to busi-
ness, farmers, environmental projects and to individuals.
It is expected that loan amounts will be in the range
€15,000 to €500,000.
For the last three years Irish Rural Link, which repre
-
sents about 600 community groups around the country,
has been raising awareness of public banks. It has per
-
suaded government departments and political parties
of the merits of promoting such a new banking force. On
16 November the RDS in Ballsbridge will host a major
conference entitled ‘A New System of Banking for SMEs’,
dealing with public banks and how they would benefit
this country. Speakers will include Seamus Boland, CEO
of Irish Rural Link, and Heinrich Haasis, chairman of
SBFIC.
It could be an economic new dawn for our scandal-
ously underserved small businesses.
John Bolger is an accountant and has, until recently,
lectured in the Business School of IT Carlow. He was
formerly chairman of the Housing Finance Agency.
Admission to ‘A New System of Banking for SMEs’ is
free but must be booked through the RDS website.
Banks
to love
Public banks are coming
and are difficult to hate
by John Bolger
The ten new public banks
will not be owned by
shareholders, their sale
will be impossible, they will
have a ‘public mandate’
and they will be limited to
their own region
OPINION
Dissatisfied customer: may feel better now
4 6 Nov/Dec 2016
O
UR EQUALITY legislation covers nine
grounds of discrimination. This
reflects the worthy ambition to be
comprehensive in attacking discrimi-
nation. However, Central Statistics
Office (CSO) data suggest we are far from realis-
ing any such ambition. They show that 41% of
people who feel they have been discriminated
against perceive this discrimination to be on
grounds other than the nine grounds covered.
There appears to be a big hole in the protection
afforded to those experiencing discrimination.
These CSO data come from an equality module
they introduce periodically as part of their Quar-
terly National Household Survey. It’s from 2014,
but it was not news as the figure stood at 42%
in the previous 2010 equality module.
The CSO data does not identify what
grounds now need to be included
in the legislation, they merely
allowed respondents to tick a
box titled ‘other ground’.
However, the indications are
that a substantial element of
this ‘other ground’ is the
ground of socio-economic
status.
First to recommend the intro
-
duction of a socio-economic status
ground was the Equality Authority back
in 2002. In 2008 it commissioned the Eco-
nomic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) to
examine the CSO data on discrimination from
the 2004 module. The ESRI did not reach defini-
tive conclusions on the composition of this
‘other ground’ but noted an association between
choosing this ‘other ground’ and trade-union
membership, low education status, and unem-
ployment. This supports the argument for a new
socio-economic status ground to be introduced
in our equality legislation.
The Equality and Rights Alliance has just
launched a report, by Tamas Kadar, that finds
Ireland lagging behind many European countries
by not introducing such a ground. The European
Network of Legal Experts in Gender Equality and
Non-Discrimination found that legislation in 20
of the 35 European countries surveyed provides
protection against discrimination on a ground
related to socio-economic status in 2016. There
is, according to the Network, a significant move
across the EU towards extending the mandate of
equality bodies to cover socio-economic-status-
related grounds.
The case flows first from the high levels of ine-
quality and discrimination evident on the ground
of socio-economic status. This has been exacer-
bated over the years of economic crisis and
austerity in Ireland and across the EU. Why
would we protect some groups from
discrimination and not others?
The Equality and Rights Alli-
ance report found that
discrimination on a socio-
economic-status ground
has grown in importance
in both human-rights and
equality law, with a grow
-
ing case-law from courts
and tribunals on this
ground. Experience from
abroad is showing that there are
important gains to be made by Ire-
land from introducing this ground.
Casework on the socio-economic status
ground, identified in the report, shows that this
discrimination is predominantly reported in
employment, social services, public and private
housing, healthcare, and social protection sys-
tems. The significant focus on the public sector
might be one reason we have been so slow to
introduce this ground. Casework on this ground
can be as high as 25% of the case load of equal
-
ity bodies, but in most instances it is around 5%.
Perhaps another reason is that most of the other
grounds are identity based whereas
socio-economic is
status based. But
research shows
that to the greatest
extent socio-eco-
nomic status is driven
by birth also. Ideologues
may deny the relevance of this but research dic
-
tates its own imperatives. This elevates the
socio-economic ground beyond pure status.
It is time to expand the grounds covered in
Irish legislation. We have waited more than the
apparently required decade from the case for
this change first being made. We have made the
required token gesture with the introduction in
2015 of “housing assistance” as a new ground
into the Equal Status Act to protect against dis
-
crimination in accommodation. People in receipt
of housing-assistance social-welfare payments,
such as HAP and Rent Supplement, cannot be
discriminated against in the provision of accom-
modation or related services. Why not go the
whole way and introduce a socio-economic
status ground?
This would best be done, according to the
Equality and Rights Alliance report, in an asym-
metric way designed to protect those
experiencing disadvantage from discrimination.
The ground could then be defined in terms of dis-
crimination against someone on the basis of
where they live, their employment status, their
education status or their housing status.
The introduction of this ground is a logical
extension of the merger of equality and human
rights issues under the Irish Human Rights and
Equality Commission and of the focus on eco-
nomic and social rights in the Programme for
Government which includes commitments to
equality-and-human-rights budgeting and pol-
icy-proofing. Adding the ground of
socio-economic status is the lynchpin for inte-
grating a concern for equality and human rights.
It is the logical next step.
Logic
dictates
Illegal discrimination
should include a new
ground - socio-economic
by Niall Crowley
Research shows
that to the greatest
extent socio-
economic status is
driven by birth
OPINION
OPINION
Niall Crowley
EGALITARIAN
THE
Nov/Dec 2016 4 7
This wasn't meant to be an open letter.
I had planned simply to write to you using the contact form on the Citi
-
zens' Assembly website.
But when I rang the Assembly office, I was told you don't get to see all
those missives from concerned citizens.
The Assembly's civil service staff sees those messages, and the judge
chosen to be your guide and hundredth member probably gets to see
them too.
But not you guys.
Instead, any views from those of us not picked at random by a market-
research company will be filtered by some unknown process before any
of you are exposed to them.
And there's your problem.
You are in a glass bubble, at once insulated from the polity at large,
closely examined by everyone as you go about your business, and –
unfortunately – subject to manipulation.
One thing you will probably see a lot of before the end of the process
is opinion polls.
And let's be honest, there's only one reason you're here.
Sure, there will be some sincere guff about fixed-term parliaments and
the mechanics of future referendums, the challenges of climate change,
but we all know the bottom line is the eighth amendment.
If Citizens' Assemblies really were that important, do you really think
they'd have wasted their time debating how old a president should be?
Do you think, if the assembly was anything about other than a PR stunt
and delaying tactics, the Oireachtas would have ignored half the recom-
mendations from the Constitutional Convention?
Nope.
You guys have one job.
You're there to take the heat off
the TDs who don't want to talk
about abortion if at all possible, for
as long as possible.
Everything else, from climate
change (important but remote from
their constituents, and really to be
decided at inter-state level by the
EU and through international trea
-
ties) to fixed-term parliaments (let’s
face it, even getting through that
phrase with its five long syllables
induces yawns) to population
ageing (to be decided by actuaries
in the departments of finance and
social protection, then presented to
ministers as a fait accompli) are as important as whether we should have
an Irish space programme.
In short, you guys are sandbags.
So, about those polls? One key survey you'll hear a lot about is the
Amnesty international survey published in Spring 2016.
Among other things, it showed that 73% of the population wants a ref
-
erendum on abortion.
There is it then, you may be thinking. Game over, let's just recommend
a referendum and go home.
Of course, there's no agreement about what outcome people want from
a referendum. Some want access to abortion in cases of incest, or rape,
or fatal foetal abnormality, or where there's a threat to a woman’s life
(including suicide), or some combination of those. You know -when
there's a ‘deserving" case’. We could head down that road, and before
you know it we'll have rape tribunals to join the suicide tribunals we
already have thanks to the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act.
According to Amnesty, five percent wants no abortion ever, in any cir
-
cumstances. And 38% are in favour of allowing women access as they
choose.
What really matters though, is that if those polls are roughly repre-
sentative, then of the Ninetynine of you, a dozen or so are for simple
repeal of the Eighth Amendment (and probably as a result, the later
amendments guaranteeing the rights to travel and information), a differ-
ent dozen of you are absolutely opposed to any changes, and the vast
majority of you are somewhere in the middle, vaguely pro-reform, to a
greater or lesser extent, but still with the feeling that the whole thing
should somehow be policed.
The temptation, when you all sit down and debate this, will be to try
and come up with some sort of grand compromise wording to square that
circle. And before you know it, you'll be drawn into strange theological
arguments over whether women who have been raped by strangers are
more deserving than those who were victims of incest, or cancer patients.
You get the picture.
So here's my recommendation. Don't get sucked into that black hole.
Send the Dáil a simple report. Tell them to stop passing the buck and using
the Bunreacht as a dumping ground for difficult questions, repeal the
eighth amendment, and legislate the issues like a grown up parliament.
Yours faithfully,
Gerard Cunningham
An open letter
to 99 Assembled
Citizens
Send the Dáil a simple report. Tell
them to stop passing the buck and
using the Bunreacht as a dumping
ground for difficult questions
If Citizens'
Assemblies really
were that important,
do you really think
they'd have wasted
their time debating
how old a president
should be?
Dear Ninetynine,
99
