Opening address of An Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Mary Harney, TD at the MacGill Summer School on Sunday, 20th July 2003

The theme of this year's summer school is `Building a more civilised society in Ireland'.

With the range of speakers at the summer school, I have no doubt that the theme will invite challenging views. For a start, it begs the question, what do we mean by 'civilised'? And how civilised are we now?

It's hard to think of civilised societies without the context of a civilisation itself. What is `our' civilisation? Will you venture down the path of an 'Irish civilisation'? Or is the context European civilisation and Ireland's contribution to it?

Your choice of topic opens up these territories for exploration. I don't expect you will confine yourselves to the narrow context of 'civilised behaviour' merely as a form of social etiquette. There are more interesting questions than whether we have good manners to each other in Ireland these days.

As you know, I am a practising politician, and in my perspective, civilisation and politics go together. The words themselves both come from classical European concepts of `the city' and `the people'. They deal with issues of large groups of people living together in some form of social organisation.

I have a fairly straightforward proposition to you today: our first job is to secure and grow the most distinctive feature of our civilisation, namely, political freedom. A second and related task in sustaining our civilisation is to achieve excellence in public administration, because all great civilisations have been great administrators.

The civilisation of liberal democracy

One of the great US Supreme Court Justices, Oliver Wendell Holmes said he paid his tax bills readily, because whether the money was spent well or not, he got civilised society for it.

This, in short, is a classic view. He's not quite implying the more tax you pay, the more civilisation you get - you know I wouldn't agree. But he does capture the idea that a civilised society has a lot to do with the State organising public provision, keeping order between sometimes unruly people, regulating the exercise of private power, and preventing external hostility from undermining the State.

The Aztecs, Incas, Romans, Egyptians and Chinese wouldn't have had a problem with this description. And indeed, the great civilisations have all involved an organised State of some form or other. They developed prosperity, they advanced a culture, they kept order. They levied taxes. They had internal politics. They wrote laws. And they lasted hundreds of years, too.

Most of them, of course, never conceived of personal freedom, equality before the law and democracy, as we know it. Many of them treated people appallingly.

I'm not a cultural relativist, so I don't mind saying they were uncivilised civilisations. I don't mind saying that human sacrifice, slavery, gladiatorial contests, conquest, murder and pillage were uncivilised, and that every society is better off without them.

There have been plenty of civilisations without freedom; orderly societies without freedom; cultures without freedom. Some of these example come from the 20th century in Europe, others are much older and from other continents. They lacked liberty, and without that, they were deeply flawed.

Liberal democracy and the liberty we enjoy are the most important distinctive features of our own civilisation.

Improving political culture in Ireland

The first recommendation I'd have for this summer school is to continue to foster the distinctive and fundamental feature of our shared civilisation: personal freedom and democratic choice.

I'd like to see our political culture develop in Ireland, with plenty of debate, passion and commitment. A political culture with depth, grounded in ideas, and rooted in democratic freedoms - personal, local, even national.

It means offering contesting ideas and choices to the public. We need the contest of ideas that will keep our values and democratic culture fresh and vigorous.

It means making it clear that our democratic choices are relevant to individual lives and to our lives together in society. That the differences in ideas matter. That our electoral choices have different outcomes. That it matters who and what you vote for.

It also must mean the absence of political violence or the threat of it. If we want to make voting matter, then it must be the only thing that matters. It must be free of violence, coercion and intimidation.

Making our political culture vibrant and relevant is not something that we can prescribe for others, or just teach in CSPE (Civic, Social and Political Education) in schools and hope for the best.

It is something that each of us as citizens and those of us in politics, in the media, and in various public policy roles, can bring about by doing.

Some people might say, 'Don't we have all this at the moment? Isn't there plenty of politics and debate? Even too much?'

There is, of course, a lot of public debate around politics. But there are aspects of our political culture that could still be improved to show that political choice matters for building a more civilised society.

First, we have to ensure that the progress we've made to rid politics of paramilitarism is completed. Since democratic politics are central to our civilised society, the greatest progress made in becoming more civilised in Ireland has been to reduce instances of political violence and to create the political institutions that make political violence ever more unjustified.

The single most civilising step yet to be made in Ireland will be the disbandment of paramilitary organisations. The full operation of democratically-mandated institutions under the Good Friday Agreement will also be a major step forward for a more civilised political life.

Second, as regards political culture, we have to counter the cynicism that is too much a part of public attitudes. Cynicism is corrosive of ideas, of commitment and of choice. It's corrosive of our democratic freedoms themselves. We politicians can best counter cynicism by not acting cynically. The media can refuse to opt for the easy, and far less intellectually demanding, attitude of cynical detachment.

Third, we should also try to counter the trivialisation of political life in the country. To trivialise something is to deliberately take away its importance. Whatever is trivial doesn't matter. If we believe politics matters and voting matters, then trivialisation is a problem. This isn't just about the intrusion into people's private lives. It also treats our political choices as a Punch and Judy show, the 'who's up, who's down, who's in who's out' type of commentary.

A lot of what passes for current affairs on radio as well as a lot of print media comment is a real trivialisation of political life. I do not think we as citizens should acquiesce in this. We have to challenge it and we have to refuse to engage on its terms.

Finally, we would also do well to avoid an excessive consensus in political life. An excessive consensus also conveys the impression that real differences and real choices don't exist. If real choices don't exist, then why bother electing anyone to make choices? Why bother thinking of what different political parties represent? Why bother getting involved in politics?

Now, I am not arguing for a permanent state of conflict. Of course, there is room in the democratic tent for everyone. But not every interest group has to be satisfied equally all the time. Sometimes a clear view of the public interest demands that other interests come second or even further down the line. That can mean corporate interests as well as union interests or vested interests.

Is social partnership consistent with this view? I don't see why not. Agreement is a good thing, usually better than a destructive process of conflict. But partnership is not a replacement for politics. It is not meant to limit the scope of political debate and political ideas. It is not a replacement for decision-making by an elected Dáil and by government. It is not a replacement, conversely, for an effective political opposition, a vital role in a civilised democracy.

It would, however, take on the appearance of a replacement, if consensus were not challenged, if government shirked decisions, if opposition limited the scope or strength of their challenges.

In this sense, I would argue that it matters most of all that we vote, more than joining a trade union or business group or farmers group. If you want politics to matter in regard to globalisation or aids or third world debt, get involved in politics, not just protest.

Joining a political party is the most important contribution to civic life that many of us can make. And in the context of next year's local and European elections, I can say that standing for political office is a major and mostly unrecognised contribution to civilised life in the country.

Elections are civilising. If you don't believe that, just ask anyone who has been deprived of free and fair elections. Look at countries where power has transferred for the first time peacefully in elections.

A vibrant, contested, peaceful political culture will help make us more civilised. It will sustain our liberal democratic values and civilisation. It will make Ireland a better society, because the very process of societal decision-making will be better.

Are you surprised to hear a politician say, 'More politics will make us more civilised?' It shouldn't surprise you. More and better politics will enhance our democracy and our civilised standards.

Other marks of civilisations

Politics and civilisation, in their classical sense, are about people in great cities. And this brings me to the quality of public administration.

Even as they lacked universal political rights, the great civilisations have all involved a superb organisation of public goods. This was for military as well as civil reasons. The Romans, the Aztecs, the Incas built great roads. I read that the Inca emperors built a 16,000 km network of stone roads, and suspension bridges made of rope that lasted centuries. The Romans were great road builders too - a pity they never reached Donegal! -- as well as great developers of law, administration and political institutions.

Civilisations have also harnessed their environment sustainably. Without harnessing resources, they couldn't create wealth. Without doing so sustainably, they couldn't have lasted hundreds of years. Without working out how to live in cities to the limits of their technical ability, their civilisations couldn't function. Water, waste and sanitation simply had to be dealt with, not ignored.

Each civilisation had to organise its defence and security forces, sometimes for offensive, expansionist reasons, sometimes for defensive purposes.

Successful civilisations were also good at trading, breaking the boundaries of their known world for commerce and enterprise.

Some civilisations were better than others for the art and culture they left behind, but each seems to have had given some importance to artistic endeavour.

I think it's also fair to say they shared common belief systems or religions, clearly not with the personal autonomy that we require now, but there was some form of shared beliefs and norms, however enforced.

It seems clear that great civilisations were particularly adept at providing the public infrastructure: roads, bridges, viaducts, irrigation systems. By the standards of the day, their excellence in this aspect of public administration really did enable them to sustain and extend their own power. It was a defining feature of their success.

The ideas can be there, the money can be there, but the administration is the transmission system of the machine. If it doesn't work well, the machine doesn't move forward.

When we reflect on these characteristics of successful and great civilisations we can ask, how are we doing in Ireland?

We have done well in Ireland in many areas, but not in the provision of public infrastructure. We have not had standards of excellence in this area. We have developed no comparative advantage here. We lag our developed neighbours. It is unsustainable for our economy and our society to continue lagging. And it is not good enough to blame `too much democracy' for it.

We don't have to re-invent the wheel in public administration. If we put our minds to it, we can take and learn from best practice elsewhere, across all areas of public administration, from metro building to healthcare to waste management.

But we must not close our eyes to our own failures, to the fact that we lag others, to the fact that others have tried and implemented solutions already. We are, in Ireland, part of a wider Europe and part of a wider civilisation where ideas and solutions can be shared rapidly, if only we are willing to learn.

Conclusion

In conclusion, therefore I would reiterate my hope for the creation of a more civilised society: vibrant, contested, democratic, non-violent politics, and excellence in public administration.

They are eminently achievable, if we have the will. They need active participation in politics and public life. They need us to challenge cynicism and complacency. They need hard work and enthusiastic engagement in our society's future. They need leadership in many levels.

But with those two in place, we have the foundations and the mechanisms to sustain a civilised society, in all the areas that the sessions of this summer school will discuss this week.

ENDS

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