The Political Economy of the Irish Welfare State
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Published By Policy Press

9781447332916, 9781447332930

Author(s):  
Fred Powell

This chapter examines the efforts of the new Irish Free State to construct a socially integrated culture. This would be shaped into a socially conservative communitarian form inspired by Catholic corporatism, cultural nationalism, and rejection of modernity. Young people were targeted in the post-revolutionary climate of social and cultural conservatism. The education system was used to promote cultural segregation. Censorship and women's subordination dominated the cultural landscape, with reproductive rights and divorce suppressed in an increasingly patriarchal traditional society. The 1937 Constitution enshrined the new social policy principles in the basic law of the country. In the end, the state bureaucracy proved resistant to openly changing Irish governance.


Author(s):  
Fred Powell

This chapter summarizes key themes and presents some final thoughts. The book has evaluated the political meaning and social reality of the Irish welfare state at the centenary point of the Irish revolution (1913–23). It argued that unlike many other modern democratic societies, the term ‘welfare state’ has had a weak political resonance in the lexicon of Irish social policy discourse. This reflects the weakness of the modernist project in Ireland and the absence of a classical European left-right political divide that gave shape to modern democratic politics. A more socially just republic will involve a universal welfare state charged with tackling the challenges of insecure job markets, scarce housing, and overstretched public services as a democratic imperative. A universal welfare state will also involve ten core social policy initiatives, including a universal health and social care system funded from taxation, ending child poverty, and addressing social inequality.


Author(s):  
Fred Powell

This chapter analyzes the meaning and content of welfare in the Free State. It argues that independence did not bring about a social revolution in Ireland. On the contrary, the political gains achieved prior to decolonisation in the context of the growing labour ferment and the widening of the franchise were eroded. The People's Budget (1909) was replaced by a taxation policy which redistributed wealth to the middle classes. Pensions were cut. Home assistance, which grew in line with burgeoning unemployment, was a source of concern to the new administration. Despite changes in nomenclature and cuts in the level of provision, the Poor Law remained in its degrading form. The promise of the Democratic Programme 1919 to further extend social rights had fallen on barren ground in the new nationalist state.


Author(s):  
Fred Powell

This chapter explores the ideal of the welfare state with particular reference to Ireland and why it matters to us as European citizens. It discusses the origins of the welfare state, the relationship between welfare and citizenship, Ireland's position within welfare state frameworks, Irish social policy, and the crisis of legitimacy in the welfare state. It is argued that in the reconstructed reality of postmodern society, the challenge of social policy is to respond reflexively to changing needs and demands. The challenge to a universalist welfare state based on social obligation, common citizenship and human rights is manifest. If populism is to be the shape of things to come, where does that leave the welfare state? Is it possible to have a welfare state in a polarised and fragmented social order? This is the great social, political and intellectual challenge of postmodernity.


Author(s):  
Fred Powell

This introductory chapter first sets out the book's purpose, which is to bring a critical edge to the Irish social policy debate. It explores the narrative of the residual Irish welfare state, the failed attempts to reform and reconstruct it, and the case for a ‘Second Republic’, based upon a more egalitarian and inclusive social policy direction. The book argues that the latter can best be achieved through the introduction of a universal welfare state that would bring vision and values to a faltering republican ideal. The chapter also discusses the core characteristics identifiable in shaping the historic path development of the Irish welfare state and its future democratic possibilities. These can be broadly summarised as the colonial context; the Irish revolution; the ‘Church–State Alliance’; economic modernisation and development; cultural modernisation and secularisation; and crisis, austerity and democracy.


Author(s):  
Fred Powell

This chapter seeks to unravel the Polanyian enigma of the Irish welfare state and expose the tensions between marketization and redistribution within the Irish development trajectory. Between 1987 and 2008, the Irish welfare state evolved in a fragmented way that produced increasing levels of ‘hybridity’ and ‘complexity’. Some commentators cast doubt on whether it was legitimate to speak of an Irish welfare state. Others concluded that it was a ‘failed welfare state’. At best, the pre-crash Irish welfare state was a work in progress towards a welfare productivist society driven by the overarching policy objective of economic growth.


Author(s):  
Fred Powell

This chapter is about the emergence of new ways of seeing poverty: its redefinition and conceptualisation. It is also about anti-poverty strategy and the role of community development in the pursuit of social justice. In the USA, this process was grandly called the ‘War on Poverty’. The war was ultimately one of ideas and values. The situation in Ireland reflected these debates and, ultimately, the power of the rich to curtail the rights of the poor. Social policy and the widening gap between rich and poor emerge at the core of anti-poverty strategy in a society moving sharply in that direction. The welfare state is very much consigned to the shadows of this debate, reflecting its ideological marginality in Irish political discourse.


Author(s):  
Fred Powell

The chapter critically assesses the representation of the Irish revolution and its social context. It contrasts the modernist influences of both the labour movement and the women's movement with the growing ascendancy of nationalism in both its cultural and political forms. Ultimately, the political set the revolutionary agenda, producing a conservative state and society, shaped by capitalism (mainly based on land ownership), religion, and nationalism. However, other key events in the Irish revolution point to a much more complex narrative. These include the 1913 Lockout of unionised workers in Dublin, the Limerick Soviet in 1919, and the organisation of the women's movement in a variety of forms. The Irish revolutionary narrative was undoubtedly a contested space, even if its memorialisation has largely focused on the 1916 Rising and the nationalist narrative. The chapter argues that there were competing narratives of the Irish revolution that need to be fully acknowledged in its analysis and memorialisation.


Author(s):  
Fred Powell

This chapter examines the impact of the 2008 crash on the Irish welfare state. The 2008 crash seriously damaged Ireland's reputation. Once bracketed with Taiwan and South Korea in terms of the strength of its economy, it now found itself compared to the sick men of Europe — Portugal, Italy and Greece. A bailout was provided by the ‘troika’ of the European Commission/ International Monetary Fund/European Central Bank with penal financial conditions, which came to be popularly known as ‘austerity’. The failure of the Irish welfare state to protect children indicates social priorities that seriously deviate from the norms of international children's rights. Austerity turned these welfare deficits into a full-blown social crisis.


Author(s):  
Fred Powell

Modernisation produced a collision of incompatible ways of life in Ireland. The resulting ‘cultural collisions’ between local and global, modern and traditional, religious and secular, urban and rural — and most significantly personal and political — have produced a profound cultural transition, based on a search for liberty. During the 1960s and 1970s, the rise of new social movements unleashed demands for greater personal liberty in the form of a relaxation of moral codes (notably in relation to the control of sexuality), of censorship, and of restrictions on personal freedom. This chapter explores the role of new social movements as agents of change and transformation, and examines how they contributed to a more open society.


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