Sir, - Alice Leahy's excellent letter (January 3rd) referred briefly to the management ethos which has increasingly influenced the medical and voluntary sector. This is especially apparent in the language used by agencies and institutions to describe people in their care.
The corporate language that has been adopted is wholly inappropriate to the issues relating to poverty. For example, when you talk about "clients" in the business sector you imply that they have choices: to take or leave what is being offered; to go somewhere else if the service is unsatisfactory; to decide, within reason, what and when to pay. It is patently obvious that this is not the case with people who are often in a desperate situation. It is precisely because of their lack of choice that they need the services on offer.
The word "client" is a misnomer used to make agencies and institutions feel they are being more humane towards the person, but without conceding authority. It serves to further exclude people and to allow them to be viewed as a bloc who can be managed.
Can I also reinforce Ms Leahy's point about the need for the human being to take centre stage? When you are dealing with vulnerable people it is short-sighted to treat them as a problem which will be solved by efficient fund-raising and the implementation of ambitious, large-scale projects. Until agencies move away from managing people and towards including them, these projects will merely act as a salve to the business conscience rather than part of a considered long-term solution. - Yours, etc., Anne Kennedy,
Terenure Road North,
Dublin 6w.