The smmer school in Glenties is an intensive, informative one-stop shop for the chattering classes, writes NOEL WHELAN
THE MACGILL Summer School was once described as a holiday for the mind. These days, for anyone strong enough to stick with it for the week, it is more akin to a politics and policy boot camp. The intensive programme involves three, sometimes four, sessions on a day, for seven days. Each session lasts between two and three hours. Cumulatively it provides a one-stop continuing professional development course for journalists and commentators.
It throws up a mountain of analysis, information and opinion, which is difficult to capture in daily news reports or colour pieces or even in an end-of-week summary.
This year, no fewer than six members of the Cabinet travelled to Glenties to display their initial wares. Most of their offerings were impressive – about which more in the coming weeks. This weekend, however, it is worth bringing to a wider audience just a flavour of the interesting facts scattered through the various speeches.
At the opening session the British ambassador Julian King, in order to emphasise the ties between our countries, reminded us that there are 200 flights a day between Irish and British airports. The ambassador also reminded us of Ireland’s strength as an exporter by pointing out that all the botox in the world is made in Ireland and all the Viagra manufactured outside of the United States is made in Ireland.
On Tuesday, at a session dealing with the difficult budgetary decisions that the new Government still has to make, Bridget Laffan of UCD, told us that there are an estimated 12,000 non-profit organisations in this country, approximately 8,000 of whom get some kind of funding from the State.
She also shared some details of a study by Tony Fahy and others which showed that there are no fewer than 23 national level programme providing area-based interventions targeted at the most disadvantaged housing estates in the country.
While these are, of course, among the most deserving areas, she drew attention to how what she called a “water can” approach to such funding is inefficient. The same study revealed, for example, that there were no fewer than 22 different community groups in Moyross receiving funds from no fewer than 15 different programmes. A similar situation applies in places like Fatima Mansions. While the State itself had never bothered to measure how much it was actually spending in these housing estates, the study put the figure at €3,000 per household in 2006.
Dealing with the spending decisions on a more macro level Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton told of how social welfare had grown in a particularly dramatic fashion over the past decade. In 2001 the figure was €7.84 billion; by last year this had grown to €20.85 billion – an increase of 266 per cent. Inflation increased by around 30 per cent during the same period.
At another session dealing with public sector reform, Fianna Fáil spokesman Seán Fleming spoke of how decision-making on public services was inconsistent in different parts of the country. In support of his argument he pointed out that more than half of appeals to An Bord Pleanála result in overturning or varying the original local authority decision, and more than half of appeals to social welfare appeals officers overturn or otherwise alter the decision made below.
At a session on agriculture Rowena Dwyer, chief economist with the IFA, pointed out that 25 per cent of our farmers are over 65 years of age. She did so in support of her call for changes to the stamp duty regime as it relates to the transfer of agricultural land.
In his paper to the summer school the Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn set out how, among other challenges, our education system faces a dramatic increase in demand in the coming years. He told of how there are 515,000 people in primary school in the country today, but that is projected to rise to 555,000 by 2018. We will have 323,000 secondary students in September and that will rise to 342,000 by 2018. At third level the numbers are projected to grow from 170,300 this autumn to 213,500 in the autumn of 2017.
The other speakers at the education debate, Mary Canning of the Higher Education Authority and Brian MacRaith of DCU, spoke of how there was a need to tackle the enduring inequality of access. They pointed out that whereas the average rate of secondary school leavers going to third-level education is 66 per cent, in the “Foxrock-type” areas it approaches 90 per cent, whereas in the “Finglas-type” areas it is, at most, 10 per cent.
At a session dealing with the industrial landscape, Seán O’Driscoll, chairman and chief executive of Glen Dimplex made a call for consolidation in our third-level education sector, pointing out Dublin had no fewer than nine different university-type institutions all within a 30 mile radius of each other.
Interestingly, O’Driscoll also pointed out that 30 per cent of household electrical goods are now purchased online, which suggests the dramatic fall off in employment in the retail sector arises from a structural as well as cyclical problem.
Martin Murphy, managing director of Hewlett Packard Ireland, told an interesting story arising from its announcement last September of 100 new jobs at its complex in Ballybrit, Galway. The company had 700 applicants and had filled all the posts by early January. However, the Irish management then went back to the company’s international headquarters, showed them the calibre of the applicants and persuaded them to locate another 50 jobs in Ireland.
The most significant figures repeated throughout the week were those relating to the scale and nature of our unemployment. Murphy pointed to the unemployed as 549,946 important reasons to get our industrial, economic and employment policies right.