IN HIS Irish Times interview last Tuesday Pat Rabbitte made an important point which I have not seen highlighted before. He remarked on the difficulty of getting political agreement on priority for a specific local need; giving as an example the problem of deprivation in disadvantaged urban communities in the centres and suburbs of our principal cities.
Pat Rabbitte said that proposals for the concentration of resources on a major problem of this kind tend to be met by claims from other ministers in Cabinet for equivalent resources for other or lesser problems in their own areas. As a result the necessary concentration of resources that is often required, at least for a period, in order to resolve a serious major social problem proves impracticable.
I have to say that this rings true to me. Irish localism is so intense, and its effects at the political level are so magnified by the intra-party competition generated by our multi-seat electoral system, that it reaches right up to Cabinet level.
As I found out in 1981, Taoisigh are expected to appoint their Cabinets not primarily on a basis of general ability or suitability for office but to give preference in the first instance to achieving a geographical spread of ministers throughout the State.
Now it is, of course, desirable to have in government people with experience of various parts of the State which have different social and economic problems, and which may also be culturally differentiated. For an important part of the job of politicians is to be sensitive to the needs of the public, which can vary quite widely from area to area.
But this aspect of government composition can be pushed too far, if it involves excluding people of ability in favour of others who may not be up to the job but happen merely to represent a particular part of the State or if two potentially able ministers happen to represent the same constituency or even just to come from the same county.
This problem is aggravated, however, by the expectation of constituencies that ministers will not merely ensure that particular problems relating to their area are borne in mind generally by government, but that their minister will deliver specific benefits to their constituency.
Unhappily this expectation is often realised "pork-barrelling" of this kind is a feature of the Irish governmental system. This offends against any reasonable concept of distributive justice. In the crudest political sense it is also often counterproductive, for it means that constituencies that are marginal for the party in power often lose out in order to enhance the local popularity of a minister whose seat may in fact be secure.
WE ARE, of course, not the only state in which this kind of problem exists: the very term "pork-barrelling" tells us that it has been a problem in American politics and it is not unknown in other parts of Europe.
However, localism seems to be particularly acute in Ireland. I recall a poll carried out several decades ago in which people were asked to state their preference between having an industry established in their locality employing 100 people or one established some distance away" (defined as more than six miles distant) employing 200.
As I recall it, 96 per cent opted for the lesser employment in their own locality, 2 per cent for the greater employment some distance away, and 2 per cent had no preference.
When I was Taoiseach the prevalence of this kind of thinking sometimes drove me to wonder just how many people would actually put the interests of Ireland as a whole before that of their locality. In moments of intense frustration I was minded to put that figure as low as 1,500.
Clearly the prevalence of such attitudes among the political class makes it difficult to plan rationally both the geographical allocation of public investment and the targeting, of geographically concentrated social needs. But this problem is aggravated by the ethos of equity which permeates the public service.
Often with good reason public servants see themselves as guardians of the public interest, in particular against any form of unfair discrimination that politicians might be tempted to propose in favour of groups or individuals who place them under pressure.
With equally good reason, civil servants also see it as their role to warn against commitments to spending in one particular sector or area which might later be used as a precedent for other demands elsewhere.
Bitter experience has taught them that a claim in the name of equity based on an unwisely granted precedent often proves compelling, and many complaints against Civil Service "obstruction" of innovation reflect not innate conservatism on the part of the Civil Service but rather a genuine and well-founded concern about creating a precedent that will, as the cliche has it, open the floodgates.
The combination of these two factors tends to produce an almost unresolvable kind of deadlock in respect of targeting of social problems, which may lead to the perpetuation of problems that are basically capable of resolution, if only rationality could be allowed to prevail.
HAVE no idea what Pat Rabbitte had in mind when he made this comment. But let us suppose that a minister is concerned with the misery of long-term unemployment as it is experienced by families living in a deprived, under-resourced area of Dublin where such unemployment is widespread and where crime and drug abuse make the successful bringing up of children extremely problematic.
He proposes that training and education resources be targeted in this area perhaps doubling the teacher-pupil ratio in schools by transferring to this area teachers from areas where social conditions are more favourable and pupil numbers have declined significantly; as well as arranging for additional training staff to be drafted in who would seek out long-term unemployed and provide them with a special financial incentive to undergo retraining.
This proposal will be sent to ministers and their Departments for their comments. The Department of Education might well be moved to object on the grounds that other areas with disadvantaged schools would demand similar increases in staffing, for which neither personnel nor finance is available. Teacher unions also would resist this proposal.
The Department of Enterprise and Employment might raise difficulties about the training proposals. And the Department of Finance would automatically object to the additional expenditure involved "for which no provision exists".
When the proposal comes before government, ministers representing rural areas, cities other than Dublin and middleclass areas of the capital, may be tempted to offer agreement to this proposal on condition that similar provision is made for parts of the areas they represent where pockets of underprivilege exist.
The minister for finance, even if sympathetic to the proposal, is likely to say that resources are not available for such an extension of the proposed scheme. The proposal might then, at best, be remitted to a working group comprising the proposing and objecting Departments, which could well be the last that would be heard of this proposal.
How can obstacles to urgently needed social reform be overcome? Most probably by basing such a proposal on adequate social research that establishes the qualitative as well as quantitative difference between the situation in these severely deprived areas and in other parts of the State.
If such a clear distinction can be objectively established, public servants' concerns about precedent creation would be alleviated. And, similarly, ministers representing other areas could be persuaded to drop their demands for an extension of such a scheme if they are genuinely convinced of the different scale of need, and believe they could defend such a distinction if challenged in their constituencies.
The role of social and economic research in policy formulation should not be underestimated. Over the decades public policy-making has become much more sophisticated than was formerly the case.
However, we have a long way to go before we escape from the dead hand of Irish localism, and it may be doubted whether fully rational policy-making can be achieved here so long a 87 per cent of Dail deputies are, or have until recently been, local councillors the great majority of whom remain primarily orientated towards local rather than national issues.