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Time to Open Public Services to Competition - Rabbitte
 national |
anti-capitalism |
news report
 Tuesday September 23, 2003 13:32 by Janus
Repost from today's Irish Times as it's subscription only. Labour support introduction of competition to public services to protest people and attack the Government for not being pro-business. Rabbitte calls for competitive services
Mark Hennessy, Political Correspondent
Public services should be opened to competition to deliver a better service to the public, the Labour Party leader, Mr Pat Rabbitte, has said.
The speech marks another stage in his effort to reposition the party's attitude towards public services in advance of local and European elections next year.
Committing Labour to high-quality public services, Mr Rabbitte said the party first had to examine some important questions.
"We must begin by talking about our general attitude and approach, as a party, to public services. It is an attitude which I believe merits re-examination and modernisation," he said.
"When we are talking about public service reform, we must not fall into the trap of automatically and in all cases taking the sides of producers.
"There are consumer interests which are valid and important and which must be protected. There is little point in saying that we will protect the interests of one small group of workers, because they are workers, if that means imposing a burden on a far larger number of consumers who are also workers," he said.
Irish people were increasingly conscious of how they were being treated, particularly since the introduction of the euro had highlighted "the phenomenon of rip-off Ireland".
"In particular, we are often inclined to focus our attention on the providers of public services, rather than on the consumers of those services," Mr Rabbitte declared. He was delivering the Michael O'Brien memorial lecture in Waterford.
The speech, which is available on the party's website, www.labour.ie, will be closely watched by trade-union leaders..
"It marks a development in thinking. But we have not yet got to the stage where we will offer the hard choices and tell the public sector what they must do," said one party figure last night.
Despite the Government's declaration that it is pro-business, Mr Rabbitte said, it had actually made the business environment 'much more difficult in many ways.
"It is now harder for business to get its employees to and from work or to get its goods to market. On a whole range of issues, including basic requirements of a modern economy like broadband Internet access, Ireland is falling behind," he said.
He went on: "All this means that the task of the left is more complicated than it was before. The class struggle may have been difficult, but it had the advantage of simplicity.
"Today there is a much more complex balance to be struck between a variety of interests - capital, labour consumers and society." The Labour Party will be faced with more difficult choices in future, he warned.
"What if creating more choice for consumers can only be done by introducing competition to a sector which was previously regulated?" he asked.
"The left is increasingly coming to realise the importance of competition in protecting consumers, although that is not a blind faith in competition for its own sake.
"Neither can we support a competition which becomes a 'race to the bottom' where environmental standards and workers' rights are abused in the interests of higher profits and capitalists."
Emphasising the need for reform and investment in public services, the Labour leader said the Government had operated a stop-go approach towards them for years.
The Government's strategy had been designed to win votes at election time, followed by post-election major cutbacks, he claimed.
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Comments (13 of 13)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13He is taking a wrong turn here, there is never a case for turning Public assets or services over to the private sector.
But public sector workers are not above criticism:
"There are consumer interests which are valid and important and which must be protected. There is little point in saying that we will protect the interests of one small group of workers, because they are workers, if that means imposing a burden on a far larger number of consumers who are also workers," he said.
Hes correct here, it is a nonsense to suggest that any public service should be run solely under workers control. The function of public service organisations is to serve the needs of people as a whole not just those who happen to work in a certain area.
Take a case in point:
Late night buses. At present Dublin Bus run a restricted service, working on this is voluntary and is worked as overtime. But the working class of Dublin require and have the right to a full late night service. Is it rational to suggest that a couple of thouand bus workers should have a veto over whether or not 500,000 working class have access to a late night service?
If Dublin Bus does not provide this service, then it will be handed over to a private operator. I dont want to see this happen, but it will only be stopped if SIPTU and NBRU agree to allow the recruitment of staff to provide this service. It is indefensible to demand that a resticted service be only run on overtime.
A clever Seamus Brennan will see this as a chink in the Trade Union armour and will know full well that there would be zero public support for a campaign in defence of the staus quo.
Bzzt! Bzzt! Crosspost from irish times! Delete! Delete!
explain what the difference would be between a FF/Lab coalition, which appears to be limit to Rabbite's ambitions, and the current FF/PD rabble in the light of the above?
Are you really going to spent the next few years of your political lives canvassing, leafletting and going to meetings so that if Labour do well and hook up with FF the PD agenda will still remain in place? Which is pretty clear will happen
Rabbite's obnoxious statement on public services might go down well with the journos in Doheny's but it reveals a startling ignorance of how privately provided public services totally alter the nature of the provision of services.
And with three political parties (FF,FG & PD) wholly devoted to the interests of the business so-called "community" do we really need another party to row in behind the anti-worker creeps in IBEC?
Yet another good reason never to vote for Labour again.
I wanted to make a bit of a statement regarding the Rabbitte speech with which I do disagree, but is not going to prevent me joining the Labour party.
I joined the Workers Party in 1983 at the age of 19 for much the same reason many of you probably joined the SP, the SWP or even Provisional Sinn Fein. I wanted to change the world, I believed in socialism, in the control by the working class of the means of production etc. I took part in protests, demonstrations, petitions, canvasses, marches, the whole nine yards. I was beaten up by Garda officers and physically assaulted by Sinn Fein members. I was aware the party I joined was not perfect but I believed we were the only chance socialism had in Ireland. What I’m trying to say is that I wasn’t some fly by night activist who did very little. I worked hard, at personal risk and loss, believed in what I was doing and was absolutely committed. Again, no different to many of you.
As time went on, I got a steady job, met someone and after the Workers Party began to implode following the heady days of the late 80s I just drifted from politics. I had responsibilities, a child, a mortgage, the rest. I’d always sign a left wing petition, or attend a demo if it was nearby, and made sure to vote Workers Party at election time, but as an activist I just kind of dropped out.
Twenty years later I’m now 39 and while I disagree with the speech posted by Janus, I still intend to go ahead with joining my local Labour party branch.
Do I believe socialism is the best way to run society? Absolutely. Quite frankly anyone who believes otherwise is woefully ignorant. Do I believe Labour is a socialist party? No, and I never did. So why am I joining it? I’m joining the Labour party because I believe they’re the best hope for progressive change in this country. I don’t think they’ll accomplish a lot, I don’t think there will be irrevocable change or a revolution. But things will be better under a Labour coalition government. Taxes might be higher, and these days I’m fortunate enough to be paying at the higher end, and services will be better. It’s about all I think I can hope for, and all I think we can expect.
I have nothing but respect for you people, many of whom I suspect are a few years younger than I am. But while I believe socialism is the correct way to run society, I no longer believe it is possible for this to take place, certainly not in my lifetime. So I suppose you could say, I’ve settled. The Labour party, for all its flaws, is the only party that is going to deliver any kind of change, however small, and I’m not deluding myself, it will be small. But better to work to bring about small changes and succeed, than work to bring about big changes and fail. Twenty years ago, I would have flown at anyone who said that and called them a traitor. Today, it merely seems like common sense.
Twenty years ago you were right. Anyone who considers themselves a socialist and who joins Labour is a traitor and worse.
The Labour Party is no place for anybody who believes in "progressive change". Rabbitte, Quinn, Spring and the rest are no different to Ahern, Reynodls or Haughey.
All see nothing wrong with privatisation. None are in any way interested in really improving the lives of working people. Just read the words of chief sellout Rabbitte above.
Did anyone see Rabbitte further disgrace himself and his party by opposing the bin tax campaign on the news today? Or did anyone hear Joan Burton disgust anyone who ever considered voting for these scumbags by laying into the blockaders on the radio recently?
I absolutely agree with you. You are a man who wants a better Ireland and a better world but you've grow up and realised that the people of Ireland are repelled by extremist parties. The only hope for effecting REAL change in Ireland is through the Labour Party, for all it's faults.
Ireland is not South America or Eastern Europe, we are a mature democracy and street politics will never achieve anything in our country.
Tom, if you believed in what the WP stood for and was doing in the 1980s and still believe in that then why are you joining the Labour Party whose betrayals of the working class were the main catalyst for the growth of the Workers' Party at that time. Labour hasn't changed its spots, even if they are covered by the ample well cut Louis Copeland suits of Pat Rabbitte and Co.
The WP didn't simply implode like an old tin can might do in a vacuum. Its split was plannned methodically and implemented ruthlessly. De Rossa and the other public representatives who left the party sent out circulars to party supporters insisting that they were not leaving because of differences with the party's political platform and that they would continue those policies in their new party. History has shown that they most certainly did not continue those policies or retain the principles which the Workers' Party had set down. Briefly, these WP policies included (and still include):-
1. Support for state and semi-state companies and outright and unequivocal opposition to privatisation.
2. Total opposition to local authority service charges and double taxation.
3. Strong support for Irish neutrality.
Tom, if you believed in these in the 1980s and still profess to support such policies, whatever your attitude to the WP, it must be inconceivable to support a party that has ditched and fudged these policies and which has embraced the market economy and the idea that capitalism can be tamed.
"Ireland is not South America or Eastern Europe, we are a mature democracy and street politics will never achieve anything in our country."
- Except national independence, the fall of Stormont, stopping the return of college fees, protecting jobs and stopping the development of neo-fascist organisations, to name but a few.
Brian, I still believe in those aims and objectives. I no longer believe they are possible in my lifetime.
A friend whom I asked to read this when I posted it up emailed me back to say it read like someone who had been beaten. A little harsh I think but I see where he's coming from. I'm sick of fighting losing battles. I want to win one, even a little one.
I haven't changed my beliefs, I have changed in that I see myself as having an option. I can join the Labour party and help bring about tiny, incremental, minor positive reforms. Or I can join the SP or the SWP and accomplish nothing. I'm not joining the Labour party because I believe in it, but because I can't see any other party to join that is going to make a difference, however small, in the lives of real people.
Yes, the Labour party are sell-outs. Yes, many of them are careerists with little or no interest in the struggles of working people. But if Labour get in power, things will be different for working class people.
A lot different? No. But a little better, a little easier? I think so.
The phrase of course was first heard in the U.S. Presidency of Eisenhower.
It implies phases of democracy:
Immature-Mature-Decrepid.
(sorry for my english)
The oldest democratic states varyingly claim to the most "mature". But the criteria vary. Constitutionally the oldest democracies are those that have seen periods of rule by military junta.
These are now confusingly termed "immature democracies" by those who think they are safely far away, out of mind, influence, and really have no power.
But they do.
Irish politicians often use the Eisenhower kernal to refer to their own state of Ireland, which was established by treaty between a military junta and HMG of the UK in 1922.
The choice isn't between futile isolation and joining the Labour Party.
Joining the Labour Party is itself an act of total futility. A Labour government would be no different in any way to a Fianna Fail government. It will continue the privatisation agenda. It will continue the anti-working class agenda.
All somebody who believes in "progressive change" achieves by joining Labour is to give scumbags like Rabbitte a tiny extra bit of credibility as they continue on their merry neo-liberal way.
Joining Labour won't help you change anything. Joining a smaller left party (at the moment I take the Socialist Party the most seriously on that front but this applies to all of them) means that you aren't going to be in government in the near future. But if you join the Labour Party you help guarantee that your ideas, your "progressive change" agenda, will never be in power.
Why not take your logic further and actually join Fianna Fail? There isn't much chance of Labour leading a government in the near future. In Fianna Fail you can make sure that you will be in the governing party most of the time. Of course, your political ideas won't be in power, but that's true of Labour too. No half-measures, Tom!
Why cling half-heartedly to the tatters of your principles when you can abandon them with a bit of dignity?
Great idea, Nu Labour. We may not be able to destroy them from within, but we could sure make a big mess.
Fianna Fail - The Spongers' Party
Was in easons today and had a look through the third year business studies books and the textbooks for economics leaving cert.
All of them were saying how great privatisation is and how the "social partnership" and low Corporate tax rates are the reason why Ireland's economy is so strong.
These are the future of our country and they need to be educated as to the flip side of privatisation.
When the socialists and communists (including marx) are badmouthed in history class, anarchism is ignored except for possible mentions of "anarchy in iraq" and the Labour Party leader starts saying things in public that are not very left wing at all, then is it any wonder that the world is in the state that it is in. I can't bear to think what they must be learning in America.