These are the days of miracles and wonder. Money is raining down on the Government like a golden monsoon. Resources are available on a scale that previous Irish governments may indeed have imagined - but only before the alarm clock sounded and they woke up to miserable realities. And every cent of it is needed, writes Fintan O'Toole
The State has a lot of catching up to do. Our social and physical infrastructure is vastly underdeveloped and supports for children, for people with disabilities, for the elderly, for the mentally ill, remain at levels barely above barbarism. The Government's job is the very pleasant one of using the money to solve the problems. The starkest proof that it is not up to that job is last week's revelation by the Department of Finance that €700 million actually given to departments in the 2005 budget was not spent.
Figures like this - so large as to be abstract - mean very little to most of us. Let's, for the purposes of illustration, do a quick back-of-the- envelope budget, outlining some of the things the Government could have done with €700 million, if it could have got its act together and spent it. This, remember, is money that was actually in the system. No strain on fiscal or political stability, no increase in public debt, no radical shifts of policies or priorities, would be required to spend it. This is simply what a conservative government could have done last year, if it had been competent enough to use the money the Dáil voted to give it.
1. The working poor make up a large and often forgotten section of Irish society. The Family Income Supplement is their main State support. The threshold for workers to qualify for it could have been increased by an extra €35 a week, bringing real benefits to thousands of hard-pressed families. Cost: €12 million.
2. Child benefit could have been increased by an extra €8.50 a month at the lower rate and €10 a month at the higher rate. Cost: €120 million.
3. The Warmer Homes Scheme, which adapts the houses of elderly and vulnerable people to keep the cold at bay, could have been extended to cover twice as many houses. Cost: €7.6 million.
4. A thousand more elderly people could have had central heating installed in their houses. The Government grant towards this work is €5,600 for each home. Cost: €5.6 million.
5. It is widely recognised that the Carer's Allowance, which is given to people who save the State a fortune by looking after elderly or disabled relatives, is paid to too few people. We could have increased the number who are entitled to the allowance by 50 per cent. Cost: €106 million.
6. Primary and secondary teachers around the country still experience severe difficulties in getting a proper assessment of pupils who are experiencing psychological and development problems. The 2005 allocation for the National Educational Psychological Service could have been doubled. Cost: €15.3 million.
7. The plight of older Irish emigrants in Britain was recognised last year as a national disgrace.
We could have had a 10-fold increase in the Government's funding for Irish emigrant services. Cost: €82 million.
8. There was a 40 per cent increase in work- related deaths in 2005. At least some of these could have been prevented by having more inspections and better enforcement. We could have doubled the budget of the Health and Safety Authority. Cost: €16 million.
9. The much-heralded increase of €290 million in State spending on services for people with disabilities - a centrepiece of the "caring" budget of 2005 - could have been doubled. Cost: a further €290 million.
10. An extra €50 million could have been allocated to Irish aid projects in the developing world. This would have allowed Trócaire, for example, to double the number of projects it is running in Africa. Cost: €50 million.
Alternatively, the money could have been spent on one big project. Arguably, the single initiative that would make most difference to the lives of the largest number of Irish citizens who depend on the State to help them, would be a universal pre-school education system. This would help enormously with the childcare crisis, but, more importantly, it would create a real opportunity to help the poorest children in our society.
All analyses agree that it would have a disproportionately positive effect on those most in need. Since it is also estimated that every euro spent on pre-school education ultimately benefits the State by €17, it would also be a good hard-nosed investment. The National Economic and Social Forum suggested last year that we should begin the first phase of introducing such a system, which would guarantee three and a half hours a day of nursery schooling for each child. It estimated the entire cost of this first phase at €680 million.
For less than the amount of money the Government had but couldn't get round to spending last year, it could have put in place something that would unquestionably have changed the lives of our children for the better. But that would have required a little of the only resource that seems to be unavailable: vision.