BY THE time of writing the people of Roscommon had received the bad news about cuts to their local hospital. In my own arts community, we are increasingly forced to make tough decisions about where and how hard the axe will fall. We are all aware that spending cuts have to be made to close the country’s yawning deficit, but how many of us are willing to offer to pay higher taxes for the retention of those services we deem to be the most important?
The fact remains that if we are to get out of the mess we are in, Irish people are going to have to make trade-offs. In the spring and early summer, the We the Citizens group travelled the country holding meetings.
Polling was commissioned from Ipsos MRBI in a bid to understand what concerns Irish people, and what they would like to do about these issues. One among many which jumped out of our poll was the economic challenge we face in reducing the deficit.
The Government has said that under the terms of its agreement with the troika of the EU, European Central Bank and IMF, it will need to find some €3.8 billion in the budget this December. How it does this will directly impact on the lives of all Irish people.
Of course the recent election was to some extent about this, with Labour arguing for a 50:50 split between spending cuts and tax rises, and Fine Gael for a 2:1 ratio in favour of spending cuts. But what do the Irish people really think? What would they choose if they had the opportunity to call the shots?
Most people who came to our events of course preferred neither tax rises nor large-scale spending cuts. Many others want to ringfence certain areas, from education to health, disability and special needs.
In order to dig down into this, a nationally representative poll asked two contrasting questions. Should the Government raise taxes a lot and spend a little less on health and social services? Or, should the Government increase taxes a little and cut much more on health and social services?
Not surprisingly, 61 per cent disagreed or strongly disagreed with raising taxes a lot, while only 10 per cent agreed or strongly agreed. However, people were also resistant to the notion of cutting more on health and social services and increasing taxes a little. Some 49 per cent disagreed or strongly disagreed and 17 per cent agreed or strongly agreed. Younger people and women were more likely to strongly disagree both with large-scale tax rises and large spending cuts.
This tendency to prefer neither hard option is one of the reasons why the deliberation involved in a citizens’ assembly may work. Research has shown that when given the information and the chance to talk to peers, people are more likely to make trade-offs.
In an attempt to understand which trade-off citizens would favour, we asked whether the burden should come from spending cuts or tax increases. Most picked spending cuts, with 46 per cent agreeing or strongly agreeing and only 12 per cent disagreeing or strongly disagreeing. Large numbers placed themselves somewhere in the middle. Interestingly, this was stable across age groups, region, gender and occupation.
Of course, raising tax is a pretty vague idea. The Government has already made some specific proposals. We also probed for the specifics of the few taxes which the Government has already mooted. For example, some 60 per cent of people were opposed to the introduction of a property tax. Men, the over-45s, the better off and those from Connacht were most in favour of property taxes. A similar pattern of support is seen with water charges.
The pattern was reversed with the sale of State assets, where younger people and the unemployed were most in favour. Overall those in favour of the sale of State assets were evenly divided, with 49 per cent in favour and 47 per cent against. When asked about the introduction of student fees unsurprisingly the under-25s were most opposed, as were women. But third-level fees are the least popular of these new measures and overall the vast majority were against their introduction, with 70 per cent opposed.
Ireland has tough choices to make. This deliberative democracy model is one way for politicians to consult Irish citizens to ensure a shared ownership of the decision-making process. The citizens’ assembly I was part of debated these issues with ordinary people from all parts of Ireland. They heard expert evidence from both sides and deliberated with people who agreed and disagreed.
The survey work to explore that is ongoing. It will be interesting to see whether that process of deliberation has had an impact on the participants’ initial attitudes to the issues and on their sense of engagement with democracy.
Senator Fiach Mac Conghail is director of the Abbey Theatre and chair of We The Citizens. The academic team behind the surveys consists of Prof David Farrell of UCD, Dr Jane Suiter of UCC, Dr Eoin OMalley of DCU and Dr Elaine Byrne of TCD