Madam, - Further to Carl O'Brien's recent report on the future of the Combat Poverty Agency (CPA), I would like to highlight one aspect of its role that has received little attention. That is its involvement in the current efforts to build a stronger social Europe and in particular its contribution to the European Union's goal of making a decisive impact on poverty and social exclusion.
The CPA, of which I was the first director (1987-2001), is the most visible evidence of Ireland's commitment to the EU goal of building a Europe free of poverty. The agency grew out of the experience of the first European Poverty Programme. It played the lead role in co-ordinating Ireland's participation in the second and third EU programmes in the 1980s and 1990s. Since 2000 it has been a key supporter of the EU's efforts to tackle poverty and social exclusion through the EU's Open Method of Co-ordination on Social Protection and Social Inclusion.
This process is an integral part of the EU's overall 10-year economic, employment, social and sustainable development strategy, the Lisbon process.
The CPA has contributed to the EU process by seconding staff to the European Commission. It has participated in transnational projects to promote exchanges of learning and good practice. It has contributed regularly to European conferences on poverty and social exclusion.
Furthermore, the agency's expertise and analysis has informed many of the key European reports on poverty and social inclusion over the past seven years. The CPA has a very high reputation across the EU among policy-makers, NGOs and academics, and also within the European Commission.
The result of the recent referendum has caused much uncertainty among many of our European allies about the depth of Ireland's commitment to the EU. If the current review of the CPA leads to a strengthening of its role, this will be seen as a very positive message about Ireland's commitment to EU efforts to eradicate poverty.
On the other hand, the abolition of the agency or any diminution in its role would send out a very negative signal. It would be greeted with dismay and incredulity by many people working on issues of poverty and social exclusion across the EU.
- Yours, etc,
HUGH FRAZER, Co-ordinator, EU Network of Independent Experts on Social Inclusion, Kenilworth Road, Dublin 6.
Madam, - As special adviser to the then tánaiste, Brendan Corish, and Frank Cluskey, his junior minister with responsibility for the Department of Social Welfare, I had the privilege of participating in a meeting between them and Dr Patrick Hillery, vice-president of the EEC Commission with responsibility for social affairs.
At that meeting, on September 3rd, 1973, it was readily agreed by Dr Hillery that a proposal by Frank Cluskey for an EEC initiative on approaches to combat poverty would be included in the wide-ranging social action programme he was preparing for the Council of Ministers.
The programme - including Dr Hillery's seminal proposals on equal pay for women and for action on disability - was ratified by the Council in 1974 and, during the first Irish presidency in 1975, the initial European Poverty Programme was adopted. The direct result of that early and significant Irish input to European social policy was the creation, in 1986, of the Combat Poverty Agency, of which I was honoured to be vice-chairman in the initial phase of its work both as a strong, independent advisory body and as a participant in on-going EU efforts to tackle poverty.
The Government's White Paper on the Lisbon Treaty makes the claim that it was a strong proponent of the inclusion of the new horizontal social clause (Article 9), which obliges the Union to take account of basic social objectives, including the fight against social exclusion. The Combat Poverty Agency plays a key role in implementing the Union's Lisbon process in the fields of employment, sustainable development and social progress which includes Ireland's National Anti-Poverty Strategy.
It maintains the central Irish contribution to a key part of EU social policy.
In the light of this potted history of 35 years of Irish involvement it is simply inconceivable that the Government is apparently contemplating the abolition of the agency and its disappearance into the bureaucracy of the Department of Social and Family Affairs. The financial gains from such a move would be minimal but the losses enormous.
National crises call for leadership and vision. Abolishing the Combat Poverty Agency would be evidence of capitulation to the sterile book-keepers and of blinkered short-termism.
- Yours, etc,
TONY BROWN, Bettyglen, Raheny, Dublin 5.