CLAIMING OUR FUTURE CIVIC FORUM:A CAMPAIGN to build a major civic social movement that politicians cannot ignore got under way in Dublin at the weekend at an event that had 1,100 participants, half of them women.
The Claiming Our Future civic forum aims to achieve a “more equal, inclusive and sustainable Ireland” and plans to hold similar events across the State.
At Saturday’s day-long event in the RDS, described as a “brainstorming session”, participants agreed priority issues including a national maximum wage, a minimum income threshold and reform of the tax system. They also called for a stimulus package to maximise job creation in the “social and green economy”.
One of the co-ordinators, Mary Murphy of NUI Maynooth, rejected the idea that Claiming Our Future was like the National Economic and Social Forum.
“There have been other attempts to have a civic dialogue. This is organised by society. The other initiatives were largely State designed and controlled spaces. So the agenda you could discuss in organisations like that is limited,” she said. “We’re trying to set our own agenda about the kind of alternative we believe is possible. So this is about society’s space, self-organised by society.”
At the session 10 participants including a facilitator were at each of more than 100 tables. Every table had a computer linked into a central computer. After a discussion on a number of general policy areas people inputted ideas and their voting preferences from one to five on a number of options provided for each policy.
A debate about values listed 12 options and participants voted to prioritise equality, accountability, participation, solidarity and environmental sustainability.
Is Féidir Linn (Yes We Can) organised a smaller event in 2009 called Shaping our Future and “we got a quite strong mandate back from that discussion, that people were hungry for that kind of dialogue”, Ms Murphy said. Six organisations are now represented on the steering group: Is Féidir Linn, social policy think tank Tasc, the Community Platform, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, the Environmental Pillar of social partnership and Social Justice Ireland.
Asked if it was a case of “all the usual suspects” in attendance, Ms Murphy said: “Of course there are some and they’re welcome because they have a role to play in dialogue and deliberation as well. But it’s much broader than that range and it’s really refreshing that a lot of people are sitting at tables and they genuinely don’t know who the other people are.”
The organisers put out a call on the web for participants and advertised as much as possible using “every possible e-mailing list we knew of and everybody who’s here is here on their own initiative. They got on the web and they booked a place.”
The event began with a samba band, then a six-minute video by film-maker Sonya Mulligan on the theme of “how we got here”, including a clip of the comment by former taoiseach Charles Haughey that “as a community we are living way beyond our means”, of former EU commissioner Padraig Flynn asking people to “try running three homes” and former commissioner Charlie McCreevy remarking on “left-wing pinkos”. A comment by Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan that “everyone will have to pay more” was repeated a number of times and the video also included statistics about bank losses and unfinished housing estates.
Asked if they were building a protest movement, Ms Murphy said: “A protest movement is often what are we against. What we want is a movement for an equal Ireland. So it’s very much about what we want, rather than what we don’t want.”
Claiming Our Future says it is neither a political party nor an electoral initiative. “It has no permanent staff and is sustained by volunteer effort and the contribution of time and volunteers from its supporting organisations.”
The RDS event received €60,000 in donations from the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, Atlantic Philanthropies, the Community Foundation for Ireland, the One Foundation, Impact trade union and Siptu. Mandate trade union provided temporary office space and meeting rooms.
Former general secretary of the Labour party Mike Allen, one of the event’s co-ordinators, said the “biggest thing people wanted was to keep the process up and running”. People “also want to bring the event out locally and to use much more localised issues”.
He said: “We are about influencing existing political parties. The votes showed that setting up a new political party was very much a minority view.”
The steering group meets next week to “look in much more detail” at the results.
“Everybody filled out a postcard with what they are going to do in the next 30 days to advance things and we will post those cards out to people in three weeks to remind them,” he said. “We’ve also asked each person to recruit 10 people.”
www.claimingourfuture.ie
