Real debate had ceased in the consensual model of politics which had emerged in the State, Prof Kathleen Lynch of UCD's Equality Studies Centre said at a conference in Ennis yesterday on redefining roles in Irish society.
Anybody who dissented now was demonised and dismissed as a crank, she said, and although the partnership model had brought benefits to many people, it masked dominance and drew on a history of anti-intellectualism. A neo-liberal philosophy was being proclaimed without being explained, she said. The citizen as a market person rather than a person with social rights was the emerging model.
The two-day conference, organised by Father Harry Bohan of the Shannon-based Rural Resource Development group, is addressing the erosion of community structures and traditional values by major global forces.
Prof Lynch said the political system was ignoring the reality that wealth would always have to be redistributed to people who were dependent because dependency was part of human nature. It was an outrage of the 21st century that people in rural areas were disenfranchised by the lack of a public transport system, she said to applause.
If there was not dissent, new ideas could not be generated. For a new vision to be realised, the ideologies of neo-liberalism, dressed-up in the "fatalistic clothes" of globalisation and flexible labour markets, had to be challenged. "We need to develop a new language which spells out our ideas. We must not be afraid of intellectual debates and conflicts," she said.
Prof Gearoid O Tuathaigh of NUI Galway said discourse needed to go beyond the equating of society with a marketplace for demands and desires. "The political leadership in Ireland in the coming decade will need to find a vision of society that subsumes the economic base, that is humane and socially integrating," he said.