22nd March 2005
Dr. Ed Walsh is a Very Important Person. He was the catalyst for the foundation of Limerick University. When he speaks on Third Level Education, on the Spatial Strategy, on Decentralisation or whatever, everyone sits up and takes notice, and quite correctly, because he is an eminent person. But after his recent pronouncements on social problems in this country I will be more cautious about relying on the content of what he said.
I went to the trouble of getting a copy of the press release UCC sent out on behalf of Dr. Walsh on 26th January 2005 regarding his public lecture "Time to Take Stock". The press release says he will discuss our economic success and its basis and our social problems which may in part be due to it.
I quote from the release:
‘In turn, Dr. Walsh says, the "bald pursuit" of economic success raises other fundamental questions about Irish society, including the pursuit of happiness - a legitimate aspiration - and how we should develop in the years ahead. The evidence, he says, suggests that many of today's young people may be receiving less love, discipline, care and attention, than previous generations, and that many pre-teen and teenage children are out of control. Ireland is ranked 51st out of 60 countries for alcohol and drug abuse, methadone maintenance has increased from 150 to 6,500 in the past decade, and reported cases of Chlamydia have increased from 200 in the 1990s to 2000-a-year at present, with a similar rise in the figures for Syphilis.’ (He is quite right but he should read the report by Dr. McQuade, Medical Director of the Well Woman Clinics, about the increase in venereal disease in the over 50s and 60s). ‘Could it be, Dr. Walsh adds, that "the layers of political correctness" that were put in place for good reasons, are now combining to produce bad results, that they are, in fact, serving to over-protect certain individuals and groups whose "selfish or boorish behaviour is damaging to Irish society as a whole?’
"Other elements, such as the retreat of the Catholic Church under the cloud of its own sexual scandals as well as bribery and corruption in high places, have to be woven into the equation, Dr. Walsh says, but the core need to construct a new framework of values, remains. The State, he adds, could make a start by removing the incentives it has put in place that tend to accentuate the problem. One of them is the active encouragement of single-parent households. "The number of female lone-parents receiving Lone-Parents' Allowance from the Department of Social Welfare and Family Affairs was 2,496 in 1975 and was above 78,000 in 2004"
What Dr. Walsh does not appear to know is that in 1975 those receiving the lone parents allowance were all single mothers, but by 2004 the Department of Social Welfare and the Family had wisely some years before consolidated all payments to lone parents so that widowed people, separated or divorced persons, prisoners’ wives and so on are now all included in the total number. Single teenage mothers are between 2% and 3% of the total number.
He is quite right to draw attention to the difficulties very young single mothers have but there has not been a dramatic increase since the Celtic Tiger roared. In 1980 one hundred and ninety six 16 year olds gave birth and in 2000 two hundred and six 16 year olds did. The increase in teenage pregnancies happened many years before and, as one can see, they are not of such a scale as to constitute huge numbers. There is no evidence anywhere that any government payment influences teenage girls’ decision to continue with the pregnancy not to mind start one. He has said that, because of his scientific background, he looks at research but did he consult "Contemporary Family Policy, a Comparative Review of Ireland, France, Germany, Sweden and the UK"? This was commissioned by Minister Mary Coughlan in 2002 when she was Minister for Family and Social Affairs and there is much useful information therein.
Or what about a look at "Women and Crisis Pregnancy" by Evelyn Mahon, Catherine Conlan and Lucy Dillon, commissioned by Minister Brian Cowen when he was Minister for Health and Children to try to discover why some women with a crisis pregnancy opt for abortion and others do not? I do not remember one woman saying she had got pregnant or would continue the pregnancy just to get the government's largesse. To many who continued their pregnancies I'm sure it was a welcome form of subsistence but if they are not to live in poverty forever they will have to get work.
One thing I am very glad of is that I was not working in the crisis pregnancy area over the last few weeks, it must have been nearly impossible to get anyone to consider any option except abortion.
One must remember that an important reason for bringing in the single mother's allowance in 1973 was the legalisation of abortion in Great Britain in 1967. "Pregnant From Ireland (PFI) was a distinct social classification in the good old days and it was feared many Irish girls would opt for abortion rather than having their children and leaving them in England to be adopted unless measures were taken to encourage them to continue with the pregnancy.
Recently a young woman gave birth unattended in Mayo. Her son died shortly after delivery, his body was found by a group of children. This could hardly be described as a planned pregnancy to get social welfare.
To me, the most startling part of Dr. Walsh's press release was this paragraph:
"Dr. Walsh says that an extensive body of international literature demonstrates that children from lone-parent families "draw the short straw of life" and are much more likely to be involved in delinquency and crime than those who are born into homes where both biological parents are present". He cites one US study which shows that 60 per cent of men accused of rape and 72 per cent accused of murder, grew up in a home without their biological father. If the incentives offered to lone-parents for social housing or other benefits actually encourages lone parenthood, then those incentives should be removed, he says."
In recent years we have had appalling cases brought before the courts of the sexual assault and rape of children by priests and brothers in the Roman Catholic Church over decades, serial rapists many of them. As far as I know, it was extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a boy or man to enter the religious life if his parents were unmarried. How is it then that the children of married people did such dreadful things if they are somehow morally superior to those children who "grew up in a home without their biological fathers being present". What a shameful stigma to put on children who had no control over their conception.
Senator Mary Henry, MD
