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    Beauty Is Education Is Truth

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    In certain circles it is still a compliment to say someone is civilised. Or for that matter a lady or a gentleman. Mostly, however the expressions are now notable for class undertones as if to be a gentleman was to be Bertie Wooster, to be a lady a badge of subservience. The word has been corrupted which is a pity for it is critically needed in dangerous times. So, for example, being civilised is certainly not a question of wealth or social status. Look at the boorish barbarians, Mr Trump and his entourage, or the Tory Brexiteers, or indeed significant tranches of the Fine Gael middle class in Ireland. The plummy, clubbable barrister may consider justice a mere game. Being civilised is not intrinsically related to education, at least to formal education. Increasingly the education system is imparting in people narrow technocratic skills useful for employability but no taste, no ethics, no sociability, nothing particularly civilised. We are breeding a generation of rote learners not critical thinkers. A new age of conformity where obedience to authority for the sake of it is necessary for success. Moreover, within the college structure promotion and preferment are now linked to an increasingly controlled discourse where ideas that cut across the norm that suit the vested interests of the status quo – ideas that have even a tinge of leftism or anti-authoritarianism, are penalised. It need not be stressed that. The paradigm of discourse is neo-liberalism and knee-jerk conservatism which morphs very easily into indulgence of fascism, the antithesis of civilisation. Certainly education through wide-ranging reading is part of being civilised. I do not trust decision-makers who do not read literature and history for pleasure or or have some smattering of philosophy (totally absent in Ireland) and social theory. Musical appreciation too is a requisite. It seems to me that those seeking positions of civic responsibility who have functions to perform but do not have a sufficiently wide framework of reference or indeed cultivation to come to nuanced and balanced decisions should be disqualified from appointment in the first place. Of course it is a lot to ask as we are living in a frenetic and frantic world where many of us are increasingly in survival mode. What time have we for reading or for that matter the opera – yet not to read at all seems to me an abnegation of responsibility. Make the time. And when I mean reading I do not mean scanning a newspaper or surfing the internet. I mean reading a book. Ask anyone from the Irish government’s front bench of Ireland to read The Brothers Karamazov or Ulysses and see how they would fare. Force them to do so at gun point. A rather thuggish senior counsel once sought to priggishly reprimand me for reading. People become interested in other things such as women he intimated, boorishly, studdishly. In another Russian novel “Fathers and Sons” by Turgenev the effete aristocrat Pavel Petrovich is ridiculed by the new breed of nihilistic proto-Bolshevik intellectuals. Being civilised becomes a crucial sign of weakness or opportunity to the unscrupulous and the cynical. They see it as a softening and a weakness and in our increasingly Social Darwinist world as an opportunity to eliminate or destroy. Of course the employment of letters and irony unsettles those who do not have it. Depth and sophistication are very dangerous to those whose modus operandi is calumny and simplification. The ambiguity and subtlety of language is a powerful weapon. Even Enda Kenny seems to know this. The Pen, properly used at least, if not mightier than, is always a useful counter-weight to the Sword. Being civilised also does not necessarily mean having taste or good manners. Heydrich played Schubert at the Wannsee conference as he ordered the mass liquidation of the Jews. My late friend Judge Hardiman ate like a hungover Cockney ne’erdowell in a greasy spoon café yet he was one of the more civilised individuals I have met. But Hardiman was a master of the truth. One need only read his judgments on our delinquent tribunals and constabulary. One of the fruits of being civilised is an affinity with, indeed a quest for, the truth. I’ll hang my definition on that. The Zeitgeist phrase is the nonsense, ‘post-Truth’. Of course Truth is transcendent. For facts it is a matter of empiricism, of evidence, of induction. For opinions it is not so clear but attitudes that converge on decency, that maximise, or optimise, freedom and equality, are best. It’s good to be robust and unambiguous in disparaging nonsense in facts, and intolerance in opinions. Climate-scepticism and Trumpism/the ‘Alt-Right’ are exemplars. They deserve no credit. A proper zeal for the truth is the likes of Chomsky’s attitude to structuralism and post-structuralism which he manifests with overarching clarity: “It’s entirely possible that I’m simply missing some- thing, or that I just lack the intellectual capacity to understand the profundities that have been unearthed in the past 20 years or so by Paris intellectuals and their followers. I’m perfectly open-minded about it, and have been for years, when similar charges have been made — but without any answer to my questions. Again, they are simple and should be easy to answer, if there is an answer: if I’m missing something, then show me what it is, in terms I can understand. Of course, if it’s all beyond my comprehension, which is possible, then I’m just a lost cause, and will be compelled to keep to things I do seem to be able to understand, and keep to association with the kinds of people who also seem to be interested in them and seem to understand them (which I’m perfectly happy to do, having no interest, now or ever, in the sectors of the intellectual culture that engage in these things, but apparently little else). “Since no one has succeeded in showing me what I’m missing, we’re left with the second option: I’m just incapable of understanding. I’m

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    Obituary: Cardinal Desmond Connell, 1927 – 2017

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    Cardinal Desmond Connell has died aged 90, generating – since he was the best known avatar of the conservative Catholic Church – predictably ambivalent obituaries. Born in Dublin’s Phibsborough he attended Belvedere College, Clonliffe diocesan seminary, and UCD where he picked up a brilliant MA. After St Patrick’s College, Maynooth where he was a bachelor of, among other things, divinity, he was ordained in 1951 and got a doctorate at the Pontifical University of Leuven, where his subject was the 17th-century French philosopher, Nicolas Malebranche – whose trick was to synthesise the thinking of St Augustine with that of Descartes – and about whom he later wrote a book which addressed many of the most complex issues relating to angels. He was appointed professor of metaphysics in UCD in 1972 and became dean of the faculty of philosophy and sociology in 1983 from where he held doctrinaire sway for a generation. In 1988, the future St John Paul II named him Archbishop of Dublin which he remained for sixteen long and purgatorial years. In 2001 he became the first Archbishop of Dublin to have been made a cardinal in almost 120 years. He led the archdiocese at a difficult time as faith broke down due to the ‘Late Late Show’, the invention of the contraceptive pill and an outbreak of education, and lovechild scandals such as those of Bishop Eamon Casey and Fr Michael Cleary enveloped an increasingly unsheepish flock. Despite his seraphim-on-a-pin unworldliness, he managed to pull the diocese out of crippling debt. He also championed the underdog at every opportunity: Travellers, refugees, the unemployed. A close colleague said, “he loved music, history, gardening, dogs. He loved his pipe”. He liked Bruckner, Elgar and Mahler and, according to obituary writers, was greatly loved by his priests and by many of his former university students. It was not enough. The first draft of history has already been written and it damns him, in temporal terms, for how he handled child abuse in his diocese. The 2009 report of the independent Commission of Investigation, headed by Judge Yvonne Murphy, looked specifically at the handling of some 325 abuse claims in the Archdiocese of Dublin, 1975-2004 incorporating much of Connell’s time: “The Dublin Archdiocese’s preoccupations in dealing with cases of child sexual abuse, at least until the mid-1990s, were the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the church and the preservation of its assets”, concluded the report. “All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities”. Although he had had the nous to set up the Child Protection Office in 2003, the report said then-Archbishop Connell was “slow to recognise the seriousness of the situation when he took over in 1988. He was over-reliant on advice from other people, including his auxiliary bishops and legal and medical experts”. There is substantial evidence that while personally appalled at the horror of a little child being abused by a person who had promised to give his life to God, he was not good at conveying this horror to victims. It is fatuous, as many have unsympathetically claimed, to make out that Connell did not himself realise this. In 2009 Connell issued a full apology in the Pro Cathedral. At a mass to commemorate the 24th anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s papacy, he said, “I did not effectively deal with it. I failed”. He also has said “I ask pardon of all whom I have offended, especially of those who suffered unspeakable abuse by priests of the diocese and experienced a lack of the care that ought to have been provided”. This is, perhaps appropriately in view of the special social privilege afforded the clergy in its ascendancy, a much more abject apology than would be normal from, for example, a politician, or a banker. According to Breda O’Brien, the Irish Times’ apologist for Catholicism: “The general consensus is now that he was a good man trying his best in a role for which he was radically unsuited, but he was more complex and faced a more complex time than that simple summation suggests”. She refers then to his concept of mental reservation – that is, the idea that while one could not tell a direct lie, one was not obliged to tell the full truth – we were profoundly shocked”. Certainly it is determining that the Archbishop didn’t make the Truth his central concern. But why would he? She goes on to defend his secrecy: “His age and generational values meant that he opposed the opening of diocesan files, not in a desire to hide damaging secrets but because he was horrified at the idea that people who had told their stories in confidence would be betrayed”. Again that was to be expected. As Murphy so clearly inferred, Connell’s central concern was the faith and the institutional Catholic Church and its traditions teachings, transcendent as they are. If his concern had been the Truth he would have better been a scientist or cosmologist. He was driven by Catholic dogma defined as “a truth revealed by God, which the magisterium of the Church declared as binding” but also, according for example to the Second Vatican Council’s document on divine revelation, Dei Verbum (‘The Word of God’), both sacred Tradition and sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same devotion and reverence”. Abuse survivor Marie Collins, who met Connell often during the period covered by the Murphy report said, before expressing the wish that he rest in peace : “He was a man of his time”. Again this entirely misses the point. He thought of himself as a man for all time, an agent for the eternal Church. Otherwise why be a priest rather than a social worker? If he failed to follow the vogue for happy-clappy openness, for the fallible watering down of God-given theology by liberalism, that was not because he was a man of his time

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    Increasing housing supply won’t reduce prices

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    The Construction Industry have said for years that “increasing supply (housing) will reduce prices”. The government have accepted this as fact and current policy is driven by it. The graph below is compiled from Central Statistics Office (CSO ) data for 1975-2015 and includes monthly new home completions and monthly average new house prices in that 40-year period. The information has been directly imported from the CSO website and has not been weighted or adjusted. House prices are for new homes only and 1975 is the reference starting point for both curves. It calls into question that the perceived wisdom of current government policy. The relationship of price to supply appears inelastic; in other words, increasing supply does not reduce cost and in fact the opposite appears to happen (similar to luxury goods). 40 years of CSO data suggests that increasing house prices leads to increasing completions (lead and lag noted). To an architect or builder this makes sense as developments are sales-sensitive and will only proceed if there is enough of a margin to get developers up in the morning. Similarly, phases are delayed if there is any drop in prices. The incorrect assumption, that increasing supply will reduce prices, underpins Government policy aimed at the speculative residential sector: inappropriate pro-cyclical measures (First Time Buyers grant), the reduced apartment-size standards introduced in 2015, the elimination of the local authority role in adjudicating planning applications for over 100 housing units etc. These initiatives are like a landowner’s wish list and disproportionately enhance site values, minimise public input and erode our two-tier planning system. This casts doubt over the competence of Department of Housing officials who advise the Minister and explains the disproportionate influence of vested interests on policy. The net result of current government measures will be to inflate asset prices and consequently increase supply (mid and high end)- not necessarily a bad thing. However, in the absence of any balancing measures aimed at lower-income households, affordability will remain a major problem. Longer commutes to affordable areas outside the capital may become the norm with infrastructural pressures and issues of sustainability as a result. This is happening in the rental sector already. Notable measures that have not been considered for affordable housing include government interventions such as: co-housing, state direct procurement, state financed home-ownership etc. Cost-benefit analyses of such measures are sorely absent from the discourse. Correlation does not mean causation. There are other drivers of demand not shown such as net migration, obsolescence, household formation, interest rates etc. However the graph illustrates that an increase in house supply has not been accompanied by a reduction in prices in 40 years. Unfortunately recent policies conduce to the boom-bust cycle we are supposed to abhor. Maoilíosa Reynolds is a Registered Architect and Certified Passive House Designer.

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    If not zeal then logic

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    It could not be clearer. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014 says that public bodies must, when they are preparing strategic plans, assess and identify the human rights and equality issues that are relevant to their functions as policy maker, employer and service provider. Public bodies must also identify the policies and practices that they have in place or that they plan to put in place to address these issues. We can only assume they meant it when they enacted the legislation, two years ago now. The excitement could, therefore, hardly be contained as the Department of Education and skills was first out of the traps with its new statement of strategy. All other Government Departments are still in the process of finalising their own new statements of strategies. They lag behind education, hot off the press with its ‘Action Plan for Education 2016-2019’. The statement of strategy opens with a picture of a smiling minister Richard Bruton and his commitment that “we can work together with all the people who work in and depend on the education and training service to, collectively, make it into the best in Europe”. This ‘best in world’ stuff is cringe-inducing but, whatever, how did it manage the new public sector duty? It is worth setting it out in full. It comes under the less than promising subheading “ensuring equity”. Equity, it must be remembered, is about fairness, not the more particular, more ambitious equality, not even human rights. It goes like this… “As part of their public sector duty, public bodies are required to consider human rights and equality issues relevant to them. In preparing this document, such issues were considered and individual actions address matters specific to the education and training sector. Ensuring access to an equitable system is a driving force throughout the Department’s work”. That’s it. It feels like a crude two fingers to the legislation, to the Oireachtas that enacted it, and to anybody who had naively entertained expectations deriving from the legislation. Human Rights don’t even get another mention in the 64- page document. Equality gets a mention as it is part of the name of the Deis (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) initiative and, under Goal 2, where the statement of strategy complacently recites that “we have made considerable progress in advancing equity and equality of opportunity”, but does deign to acknowledge that “significant challenges remain if we are to ensure that children and young people from different backgrounds are adequately supported so that they can experience success in the education system”. Anything vaguely equality-related is squashed into Goal 2 of the strategy statement which is to improve the progress of learners at risk of educational disadvantage or learners with special education needs. Goal 2 has 18 actions. This compares with 35 actions under Goal 1 to improve the learning experience and success of learners, 29 actions under Goal 3 to help those delivering educational services to continuously improve, 37 actions under Goal 4 to build stronger bridges between education and the wider community, and 20 actions under Goal 5 to improve national planning and support services. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission has produced limited but clear guidance on implementing this public-sector duty. The steps required include: Undertake an assessment of human rights and equality issues that are relevant to its functions, to the services it provides and to its employees. The Department of Education and Skills Statement of Strategy demonstrates no evidence of such an analysis. Consult broadly with employees, managers, trade unions, individuals and communities accessing and using the services, and other key stakeholders, which may be affected by inequalities and human rights issues. The Department of Education and Skills received submissions from 600 individuals and groups but there is no evidence that any of these related to equality and human rights or the public-sector duty. Screen and analyse policies and programmes from a human rights and equality perspective, identifying which existing policies and programmes are particularly relevant. The Department of Education and Skills Statement of Strategy demonstrates no evidence of such screening or analysis. Develop action plans on human rights and equality with defined actions and responsibilities. The Department of Education and Skills Statement of Strategy demonstrates no evidence of such an action plan. So, what next? The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, in its guidance, states that where it “considers there are failures to fulfil the Public Sector Duty, it can invite a public body to carry out an equality and human rights review of the work of the organisation and prepare and implement an action plan”. Logically then, the only outstanding matter now is when will the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission act? Niall Crowley

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