Category Archives: Misc

tuam

The Angels plot of the Mother and Babies Home in Tuam Co Galway on Saturday

The excavation of a the possible site of a mass grave in the grounds of the  Tuam Mother and Baby home has begun.

But have they identified the right plot?

Izzy Kamikaze writes:

A few weeks ago, I was happy to hear an excavation was starting at the site of the Mother & Baby Home in Tuam.

Then I saw where the hoarding went up.

I have information that suggests they’re digging in the wrong place and I know the Commission of Inquiry into Mother & Baby Homes has that information too.

It’s hard to know how to react. I struggled with feelings of powerlessness and despair. Is the hoarding in the wrong place accidentally or on purpose?

Whose interests does it serve? In a country that ‘apologises’ to Magdalene women, then tries to swindle them out of the medical care they were promised, the line between conspiracy and cock up is very hard to find.

…When corruption at the top gets to people at the bottom of the pile, it tells us we don’t matter. We might see what’s happening, but we can’t change anything, we’re too small and unimportant.

Nobody will believe us. Nobody will hear us. There’s nothing we can do. If the people at the top don’t want change and the people at the bottom think they can’t make change, then change doesn’t happen. That’s how the country that once led the world in locking up inconvenient people becomes the world leader in letting sleeping dogs lie.

The time for letting sleeping dogs lie at Tuam is over.

We’re meant to feel powerless, but we are not powerless.

[Historian] Catherine Corless, who documented 796 deaths at the Tuam Children’s Home, is not powerless.

Adopted people denied information about their origins are not powerless. Women whose children were taken are not powerless. We can expose what’s hidden. We can make change.

One way we can make change is to appeal to those who do have power and to do so publicly. We can make it impossible for people in power to say they didn’t know what was going on and what they needed to do to put it right.

So, I’ve written a letter to Katherine Zappone, who’s currently the Minister for Children, but I’ve also written it to you. In it, I tell her (and you) that

Witness descriptions of burials at Tuam confirm there is more than one burial site.

One witness description of burials closely matches disused sewage tanks below the site (formerly a 19th century workhouse.) These tanks are outside the area being investigated.

Witness descriptions of a second burial site may describe either a section of the 19th century sewage system or the 20th century septic tank which replaced it. Only the 20th century tank is within the area being investigated.

An area which may contain burials is under an access laneway used by cars. This may be destroying evidence and is also potentially dangerous to drivers and pedestrians.

If underground structures at the site in Tuam were not properly treated when the housing estate was built, there is serious risk of them collapsing, causing injury or death to users of the area which includes a children’s playground.

Failure to find bodies at Tuam, or to find the number of bodies there should be (which is in excess of 800) may indicate that deaths were falsified in order to facilitate illegal adoptions.

It’s a long letter [full text below], but easy to read, so put the kettle on and make some time. Come back to it later, if you need to.

But please don’t read this just as an appeal to the power of the Minister. It’s an appeal to your personal power, the power they try to make you believe you don’t have.

A letter to the Minister with responsibility for the Tuam Babies (Izzy Kamikaze)

Previously: ‘The Septic Tank Was In This Location’

Troubling

Pic: Andy Newman via Tuam In Pictures

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Flowers outside the unofficial halting site in Glenamuck Road in Carrickmines, Dublin,  where a fire killed 10 members of the same Traveller family, one of whom was pregnant

Thomas Erbsloh sent the following letter to The Irish Times – for the letters page – before the weekend of October 8/9 – ahead of the anniversary of the Carrickmines fire on October 10.

It has yet to be published.

Thomas wrote:

This time last year, the issue of Traveller accommodation briefly hit the media headlines, following the tragic fire in Carrickmines, killing ten members of the Traveller community. While there was an outpouring of sympathy across the country in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, what has happened since, in terms of providing safe Traveller accommodation to ensure such a tragedy will never happen again?

Since the late 1990s, each local authority has its own, statutory Local Traveller Accommodation Consultative Committee (LTACC), which includes Traveller representatives. Following Carrickmines, the Department directed an almost immediate fire and safety review of Traveller accommodation.

Local authorities provided reports to the Department over the next couple of months, and subsequently most local authorities set up steering committees to address issues identified, with the LTACC becoming the steering group for this in many cases.

So far, so good?

In many cases, the fire and safety reports are being withheld from the Traveller representatives on the LTACC – so one is to be a member of this important steering group, without having access to the one crucial report that informs the work of this steering committee. Hmmm?

Instead one has to hope and rely that [Irish Times journalist] Kitty Holland will access the relevant information under FOI, and one might find out this important information by reading The Irish Times. While this is hardly the core issue in the delivery of safe accommodation, it exposes, once more, the tokenism in the framework structures.

The Traveller Accommodation Strategy, in place since the late-1990s, has failed in delivering Traveller accommodation. It has failed because it is strong on intent, but poor on implementation, and completely lacking any system of sanctions.

If you are in the way of the expansion of Apple Computers in Cork, you will be re-accommodated in brand new accommodation (funded out of a miraculous fund, outside of the national budget for Traveller accommodation, at a cost of € 5million, according to Cork City Council), but if you survived the tragedy in Carrickmines … well, that`s an entirely different story.

Ireland, 2016 – one year from the Carrickmines tragedy; their friends and relatives will mourn the ten dead. Not only were their deaths avoidable, their deaths were also in vain : nothing has changed and the merry system of windowdressing continues. Ireland, 2016 – one hundred years from cherishing the children of the nation equally.

Thomas Erbsloh

Anyone?

Previously: ‘They Couldn’t Get To The Water’

Mark Stedman/Rollingnews

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Michael Taft

From top: Katherine Zappone, Minister for Children and Youth Affairs at the Aishling Nursery in Tallaght last June; Michael Taft

Everyone is trapped in Ireland’s childcare model – providers, workers, parents and, most of all, children.

Michael Taft writes:

The only potentially bright spot in an otherwise dismal budget was the proposals on childcare.The National Women’s Council of Ireland also welcomed the proposals:

‘NWCI has welcomed the announcement of a comprehensive childcare package as part of Budget 2017 as a significant change of direction that has the potential to have a huge positive impact on women’s equality if further funding will be provided.’

Potential seems to be the word. We should all hope that Minister Katherine Zappone’s proposals work. Ireland has one of the highest childcare costs in Europe.

Costs of €1,000 per month or more are not only a burden on households; they are an impediment to people (usually women) from entering the workforce. Anything that can reduce this burden and remove obstacles from work should be welcomed.

But there is a long ways from potential to actual. While much of the debate on the Minister’s proposals has focused on caring in the home I want to look at the potential of both reducing household costs and improving the quality of the services.
At the risk of oversimplification (you can read a little more detail here and here), the Single Affordable Childcare Scheme will amalgamate a number of schemes with two types of payments:

A universal payment for all children between six months and three years – a minimum of €20 per week regardless of household

A means-tested payment with a maximum payment of €259 payment per week, tapering off to a net income household threshold of €47,500.

The payment will be paid directly to the childcare provider or crèche.

Much of the commentary assumes that these payments constitute a reduction in the fees but this is not the case. The Department of Children admits as much:

‘Childcare fees are determined by childcare providers. The Affordable Childcare Scheme will provide a subsidy towards the fee charged by the provider, but the sum that parents will have to pay will then depend on the childcare provider’s own fee policy.’

In other words, the subsidy will be paid to the provider. As to the fees charged, that will be the decision of the provider. The provider could reduce the fees by the entire amount of the subsidy, a partial amount or – at the extreme – not at all.

It would be wrong to put the providers in the hot seat on this one. The problem lies in the loosely regulated market-model of childcare that we operate. A market model means that each individual provider must balance expenditure and revenue to break even.

Any additional cost must be, by and large, passed on to the parents. And loose labour market regulation means that staff are poorly paid in an occupation with few qualifications or career paths. Everyone is trapped in this – providers, workers, parents and, most of all, children.

The Department is hopeful of a ‘pass-on’ to the parents and is hopeful that measures requiring that providers publish their fees will help parents to ‘shop and compare’ (should this have to happen in what should essentially be a public service?).

But there are many legitimate reasons why providers might be unable to pass on the subsidy in whole or substantial part.

During the recession many providers kept fees down knowing that parents couldn’t afford increases. This meant years of pent-up spending pressures (e.g. maintenance, replacement, investment).

It also meant years of depressing wages which has resulted in poor living standards for the worker and high staff turnover for the provider which drives up costs.

Now that there is money in the system, the provider can engage in spending – on building, equipment, service provision and staff.

Let’s go through some numbers based on the Deloitte review of the costs of a childcare facility. The review dates back to 2007 so we’ll treat this as indicative but given that the costs per child at that time were between €215 and €254 per week, the numbers remain relevant for this exercise.

A model childcare facility has overall costs of €553,000. Of this, staff costs make up 67 percent, given the labour-dense nature of this work. Building costs (maintenance, repairs, rent, insurance, etc.) make up another 23 percent with direct costs (food, cleaning, materials, administration, banking) make up the rest – 10 percent. In the model facility, there are 47 children though some would now be catered through the free pre-school years where available.

So now the state will pay approximately €47,000 to the provider in respect of the attending children. However, if staff receives a 10 percent pay increase – in many cases taking them off the minimum wage – this will eat up a substantial portion of the subsidy.

In the Deloitte study, it would take up 80 percent of the subsidy, leaving the provider in a position to reduce fares by €4 per week. Any small increases in building or direct costs (to improve quality) will cancel out the subsidy leaving the parents paying the same fees.

This doesn’t count the cost of professionalising the service with degree-education for childcare workers. The report states:

‘Crucially, there is no reward for obtaining a degree in early childhood education and care and, with the exception of the ECCE (Early Childhood Care and Education) scheme – which requires a minimum of a Level 6 qualification – there is no incentive for existing educators in the field to upskill to higher level qualifications.’

Nor does it consider the issue of supply. Increasing the number of childcare places through new establishments is a costly activity.

Though labour market regulations are lax, there are, fortunately, very high building, health and safety standards making up start-up costs extremely high. It is questionable whether the subsidies will have much impact in this area.

And what about moving to best practice ‘educare’ facilities that exist in Scandinavia and other European countries? Have a read of this and see how far we have to go to reach the highest standards of care, education, accessibility and affordability.

Providers with a high number of low-waged parents will fare better given the high levels of subsidy. They will hopefully be able to provide for better paid and qualified staff, better service quality and reductions in fees.

But for this to become widespread across the sector would be extremely costly and potentially highly inflationary.

‘Keeping childcare costs down will be a challenge when a range of subsidies are introduced next September, the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Katherine Zappone, said last week. We may be running in spending just to stand still in affordability.

None of this is the Minister’s fault. She has inherited a market-model system which has been neglected for decades by successive governments.

Ideally, childcare would be categorised as a public service, produced at local level through local authorities combined with a network of highly regulated not-for-profit providers.

The state would absorb the costs but be in a position to control those costs – and set fees not based on cost-recoupment but on affordability.

But realistically this government is not going to go for this. Nonetheless, it might be an interesting exercise for the Minister to draft up a childcare policy based on a public service – to establish a benchmark.

Having established a best-case scenario, then one could construct policies and strategies to move our fragmented market-based model towards that goal.

Minister Zappone deserves support for taking up this issue in a reforming way. Now it’s for all of us who want to see these reforms succeed to point out the fault-lines, traps and means to achieve the goal of a high-quality affordable childcare system.

It won’t be easy. And that’s an under-statement.

Michael Taft is Research Officer with Unite the Union. His column appears here every Tuesday. He is author of the political economy blog, Unite’s Notes on the Front. Follow Michael on Twitter: @notesonthefront