A European task force of statisticians is currently examining how best to calculate the economic benefit of illegal activities such as prostitution and drug dealing. They want to include the value of such services in the official estimates of national income. There is a certain logic to that. Gross domestic or national product is a measure of the wealth created in a country each year and, whether legal or not, services that people are willing to pay for must be considered part of that wealth. There are plenty of other goods and services falling within that definitionof economic wealth and although included in the official GDP figures they certainly don’t improve human welfare. The reason, by the way, that Eurostat, the EU statistical compiler, is pushing for the inclusion of prostitution and drug dealing in GDP estimates is to ensure a level playing field across the Community. The value of such activities appear in the GDP of those countries where they are not illegal and such countries are at a comparative disadvantage when contributions to the EU budget are being calculated. This is simply an illustration of the obvious fact, which is all too often forgotten, that GDP or GNP growth is not an adequate measure of human progress. It measures a narrow definition of wealth and not human welfare. Yet one can sense in the rationale behind many government policies an undue emphasis on the impact on economic growth and too little on less tangible effects on human welfare. There is an overwhelming tendency to measure progress in terms of what we can easily measure. This tendency is all too obvious, for instance, in those policies which ignore the real value of unpaid carers. Examples are those policies that assume that there is a obvious benefit to be gained from encouraging more people into paid-employment. It’s an assumption that is not self-evident. It is based on a supposition that an overriding objective of government policy should be the maximisation of economic growth. And that premise needs to be increasingly questioned. During the long decades of high unemployment and emigration there was no doubt that the benefits of economic growth far outweighed any costs incurred as a result. But now with full employment, resource shortages and stretched infrastructures it is no longer possible to use economic growth as a shorthand for social progress or improved welfare. That makes it more difficult for the policy-makers and politicians. Most of them still speak of economic growth as an end in itself instead of as a means to the end of improving the quality of people’s lives. This failure to recognise the shortcomings of GNP as a measure of progress seems to influence all too many Government policies. There is a multitude of different policies. Some help, some hinder and some are neutral in their effect on family life. So there is no single answer to the question “Government policy – a help or a hindrance to family life?”. But it is a question that should be asked of every Government policy, preferably before it is put into practice. And all too often it isn’t. One of the recommendations of the Commission on the Family, which issued its final report six years ago, was that the potential impact of Government measures on families should be explored in Family Impact Statements. Such statements would set out clearly the consequences for families of both central and local government policies, programmes and services. That recommendation, like so many of the Commission’s recommendations was never acted upon. This, the 10th anniversary of the International Year of the Family, would have been a good time to revisit the Commission’s recommendations. Its final report was a wide-ranging definitive work running to 650 pages. The Commission considered 536 submissions and consulted widely with experts in family law, the Constitution, childcare and services for children, employment and workplace policies, poverty and healthcare. While in no way devaluing the countrywide consultation process initiated last year by the current Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mary Coughlan, the exercise added little to the work of the Commission. It allowed people to once again present their views but the conclusions drawn skilfully together by Olivia O’Leary who chaired the sessions and Mary Daly who drew up the report “Families and Family Life in Ireland” adds little to the views, concerns, conclusions and recommendations outlined in the Commission’s report of six years ago. What’s needed in so many areas is not more consultation, more discussion or more reports but some action. It’s amazing how long decisions can be postponed even when the logic of a proposal is overwhelming. A few weeks ago the Joint Oireachtais Committee on the Constitution recommended the implementation of measures aimed at capping the price of development land. (It would be interesting to prepare a Family Impact Statement on that proposal.) Similar measures were first mooted in the Kenny report submitted to the Government in 1972. Drawing on the Kenny Report similar proposals were put forward by the Commission on Taxation in 1982 and over all those years many commentators, myself included, have drawn attention to the proposal from time to time. The idea is clearly in the public interest, makes economic and social sense but successive governments have managed to ignore it just as many of the recommendations made by the Commission on the Family have been ignored. That failure to act is in itself a hindrance to family life. But how are we to judge those policies that were implemented? What benchmarks can we use? Despite deep felt differences over such questions as what constitutes a family, attitudes to childcare in an outside the home and the rights and wrongs of divorce, there is a surprising degree of unanimity on general principals. The Commission was critical of a lack of coherence and clarity of objectives in relation to family policy. It saw a need to set out clear objectives, to outline exactly what the State was trying to achieve for families. And, in order to achieve its objectives, there was a need to strengthen the institutional framework so that the various manifestations of family policy acquired a greater degree of coherence and rationality. The Commission’s proposals included the establishment of the Family Affairs Unit within the Department of Social and Family Affairs and the requirement for Family Impact Statements. These proposals were of vital importance in the view of the Commission. The Family Affairs Unit was seen as a major co-ordinator of effort across Government Departments and agencies. The Unit is certainly there but it doesn’t seem to have that wide a role. The Family Impact Statements were seen as “critical in placing families centre stage” in policy making and implementations. They haven’t been introduced. But back to the general principals. There were six of them put forward for consideration. Maybe they are still being considered since I don’t remember seeing any Government statement of principals yet. The Commission described its suggestions as “essential truths about families which should underlie the formulation of policy in relation to families. The principles have been developed through research work undertaken on behalf of the Commission. They have emerged from a process of clarification and they draw on the overwhelming desire of the hundreds of families who wrote to the Commission to promote family life and tackle the problems families are facing.” The principles are as follows: ? Recognition that the family unit is a fundamental unit providing stability and well being in our society; ? The unique and essential family function is that of caring for and nurturing all its members; ? Continuity and stability are major requirements in family relationships; ? An equality of well being is recognised between individual family members; ? Family membership confers rights, duties and responsibilities; ? A diversity of family forms and relationships should be recognised. The participants at last year’s fora were also strong on principals and values. In her report Mary Daly encapsulates them under a number of headings. To a large extent they reflect examples of the Commission’s principals in action. Respect for family work: This is, of course, a major issue. Those who undertake unpaid work such as caring for children, the incapacitated and the elderly are all too well aware of how little value is put on their work. That feeling has been compounded by a number of Government policies such as the individualisation of tax bands. Choice and the ability to achieve a balance between employment and family life: Many participants felt that their choices were limited. As Mary Daly put it “policy in the current climate gives little support or encouragement for people to ‘choose’ to be involved in home and family on a full-time basis.…… There is a feeling that the family has been pushed to the sidelines. Employment is so emphasised now that it seems to dominate public policy and where reconciliation is an objective of policy it seems to be conceived of in terms of ensuring that people’s family life does not get in the way of their being active in the labour market. People want to reclaim an independent place for the family and want family in its own right to be a concern of policy.” Equality: This was mentioned not only in the context of gender equality but also in respect of income, religion, ethnic and cultural background. Diversity: The definition of “family” is wider now than it once was and according to Ms Daly “the spirit of discussion at many of the Fora was that future policy should embrace diversity in all its forms and make it one of its guiding principles.” So how do Government policies, or the lack of policies, shape up to those values? In many areas the shortcomings are all too evident. I’m going to zone in on just two of them, respect for family work and the provision of choice to help achieve a balance between employment and family life. That’s not to say that they are the only issues but they are high on the agenda for many families and come to the fore particularly in the thorny subject of childcare. So what did the Commission propose and what has the Government done since? The Commission was not only of the view that the value of unpaid caring work carried out in the home in respect of children, the disabled or the elderly should be formally recognised in the Constitution but also that there should be financial recognition by the State. There was no general agreement on the payment in respect of children under 3 years of age so three options were outlined. A payment of £30 (€38) a week in respect of children being cared for full time by a parent in their own homes, a PRSI based parental leave payment that would be dependant on having PRSI contributions and, a middle of the road option of greatly increased child benefit in respect of all children up to 3 years of age. That final option is neutral as between those parents who stay at home to look after children and those in paid employment who pay for childcare. The recommended payment was £30 (€38) a week. Adjusted for increases in hourly wages since then that would now be equivalent to €238 a month. That’s over €100 more than the current payment of €131. One of the attractions of this final option was that it provided parents with choice. There is no implicit assumption that paid work outside the home is of greater value to society than the work of the non-wage earning homemaker. Parents are left to make their own choices. A similarly neutral option was proposed for pre-school children over the age of 3. For these the Commission recommended annual vouchers worth £1,000 (€1,270) that could be exchanged for pre-school facilities. That would be equivalent to about €1,850 now. Neither of those proposals was accepted by Government. Child benefit has been increased but to nowhere near the level proposed. The voucher scheme sank without trace. A similar British scheme had proved unsuccessful but for specific reasons that the Commission recognised and which would not have applied here. In the meanwhile we had various groups looking at childcare. It has been on the table at every national pay deal negotiation. The trade unions are still seeking a solution based on tax relief that would only help those in employment who are earning enough to pay tax. The employers will accept any solution that will encourage more people into the workforce without them having to provide facilities or pay extra wages. And the Government tries to keep its head down and do nothing. Some help was provided to two income couples by individualising tax bands and in justifying that change Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy could have pointed to some criticism of the pre-individualisation income tax regime in the Commission of the Family’s report. But the changes were clearly not aimed at helping to support families. The Commission only advocated change in the context of making more resources available that could be targeted directly to carers. Mr McCreevy simply conferred a benefit on two income couples and only, indeed, on better off two-income couples. When it was introduced only those with joint incomes in excess of £28,000 a year gained from the change and according to revenue figures somewhere between a half and two-thirds of two-income couples had joint incomes below that. So it wasn’t universally beneficial. And of course it wasn’t targeted at couples with children. The Commission did recognise that the old system didn’t take account of children either. All married couples were treated the same whether they had children or not. It suggested that, provided older couples who had grown accustomed to a single income situation were protected from the impact of the change, it would be fairer to move towards a system of individualisation and to target resources at those with children or other caring responsibilities whether in the labour force or not. So in general a single income couple with no caring responsibilities would not get the same tax reliefs as a two income couple that had young children. But that is not the way that tax reform has moved. The anomalies in the social welfare system are legion. Many single mothers face a loss of income if they get married or even agree to live with their child’s father. Provided the parent is living alone with a child is entitled to a single parent family payment subject to a means test which ignores the first €146.50 of weekly earnings and half any additional earnings up to €293 a week. That payment is lost if the couple is cohabiting. This disincentive can also exist outside of the social welfare net for couples on low incomes. A couple living apart can qualify for extra tax credits in the form of two single parent credits. That is not available to cohabiting couples. The problems are well recognised; the possible solutions undoubtedly complicated but real reform seems as far off as ever. Similarly the legal difficulties facing atypical families were recognized long before the recent report from the Law Reform Commission. Although one in three children is now born out of wedlock nothing has been done to address the anomalous position of the fathers of those children – fathers who have few legal rights. I am conscious that I am just touching on a limited number of the Government policy areas that can impact on family life. It is a very broad topic but the groundwork has been done. There should be no dispute over the principals outlined by the Commission on the Family and gleaned from the consultation process undertaken by the Department of Social and Family Affairs last year. Many of the solutions have been outlined. What is needed is a willingness to devote the necessary resources to measures that may not immediately produce an increase in national income but would certainly enhance human welfare and happiness. ends 3rd May 2004 |