Maybe Equality - Village Magazine

54 February 2016

he Government would be happy to go to the

polls wrapped in the mantle of a ‘Yes Equal-

ity’ Government. The Government delivered

on the marriage equality referendum. We had

the referendum to beat all referendums and

same sex couples can now get married, their relation-

ships afﬁrmed as equal. This was a remarkable

achievement. Eamon Gilmore called it “the civil rights

issue of this generation”. However, is it enough for Fine

Gael and Labour to don the mantle of a ‘Yes Equality’

Government in search of a vote?

Aodhán O’Riordáin, Minister of State at the Depart-

ment of Justice and Equality, tried to keep the feeling

warm. A month after the referendum he declared the

report of the working group on direct provision for asy-

lum-seekers, set up by his Department, as another “Yes

Equality moment”. This sorely diminished the mantle

and, indeed, any correlative right to don the mantle.

The recommendations of this report were far from any

ideal for equality and human rights. The report essen-

tially permitted continuation of this inhumane direct

provision system for receiving and accommodating asy-

lum-seekers. Only those asylum-seekers serving ﬁve

years or more in the system were to be

released. The mantle has since been

further sullied as even the limited

recommendations have not been

implemented.

Direct Provision is not the only seri-

ous human rights violation that this

Government has countenanced. RTE’s

Prime Time exposed the gross abuse

of people with disabilities living in

Áras Attracta. Political disapproval

ﬂowed yet action was absent. The

Government ignored the 2011 Congregated Settings

Report that recommended that “people with disabilities

living in congregated settings move to community set-

tings within seven years”. It ignored the costed

submission of the HSE, made in 2015, seeking some

€250m to implement the report.

Whenever it came to money, this Government evinced

little interest in donning the ‘Yes Equality’ mantle. The

treatment of the Traveller community reﬂected a rejec-

tion of equality and human rights by the Government.

There was an extraordinary disinvestment in the Trav-

eller community. The education budget speciﬁcally

allocated to Travellers was reduced by 87% and the

accommodation budget by 85%. This happened despite

signiﬁcant educational inequality for Travellers and the

scandalous, often dangerous, living conditions they

continue to endure. The tragedy of ten lives lost in the

ﬁre on the temporary Traveller halting site in Carrick-

mines was not unpredictable. Even tragedy, however,

failed to secure any reinvestment in the Traveller

community.

People with disability fared badly. Their prospects

for independent living receded. The Mobility Allowance

and the Motorised Transport Grant for people with dis-

abilities were cut. The Minister for Health and Children

axed these schemes in 2013 because criteria governing

the schemes were found to be in breach of the Equal

Status Act in a case heard by the Equality Tribunal in

2008. The Minister did not have to axe the scheme. He

promised the issues would be resolved quickly but

some people with disabilities remain on the schemes

found to be discriminatory and no new scheme has

been provided for the many others now precluded from

access to these vital supports. The schemes were cen-

tral to participation in society and to ensuring people

do not become trapped in their own homes.

Lone parents didn’t ﬁne it was a ‘Yes Equality’ Gov-

ernment. Changes to the One Parent Family Payment

caused stress and hardship for many families, that are

much more likely to experience poverty and social

exclusion than others. 63% of them experienced

enforced deprivation in 2013. The Government effec-

tively ended access to the One Parent Family Payment

in 2015 for lone parents whose youngest child is seven

or over. The ﬁnancial losses for working lone parents

are so signiﬁcant that they are likely to give up part-

time employment.

Trans people, on the other hand, did get some of the

‘Yes Equality’ treatment. Legislation secured legal rec-

ognition for them in the gender with which they

identiﬁed. This was on foot of legal action taken by

Lydia Foy to assert her rights. The legislation, despite

its failure to respond adequately to young Trans people,

compares well with the most progressive approaches

to the rights of Trans people at a European level.

The legislation to ensure 30% of all candidates of

each party in national elections are women is progres-

sive. There was a touch of the ‘Yes Equality’ about this.

It did not cost money but it is clear that it is causing

some signiﬁcant pain in male bastions. The same com-

mitment did not extend to private-sector boardrooms,

despite proposals from the European Commission for

a 40% quota of the under-represented gender on cor-

porate boards. And that ‘Yes Equality’ feeling drained

away with the failure so far to address women’s

Only those

asylum-seekers

serving ﬁve

years or more in

the system were

to be released

Maybe Equality

'Yes Equality' rings hollow for asylum-

seekers, people with disabilities,

Travellers, or lone parents

by Niall Crowley

GENERAL DELIVERY