People of the Year - April

The year in people: April

Joe Higgins:

a socialist conscience

Joe Higgins, perhaps the only socialist in Dáil Éireann apart from the Taoiseach, was the driving force behind the uncovering of the appalling standards of labour at the Turkish contractor, Gama, and the pursuit of restitution for the workers.

A colleagues of his in the Socialist Party got "inside" the Gama workforce with the help of a Turkish friend, and persuaded the workers to come out with their grievances. The non-unionised workforce was being paid €2 - €3 per hour for working weeks of 60 hours and upwards. They were billeted in prefab dorms, with hefty deductions from their wages for accommodation and food. Gama had won government tenders on the basis of bids significantly lower than the competition, and a weak labour inspectorate in the Department of Enterprise had failed to keep tabs on conditions at the company.

When it emerged that the company had been paying the balance of wages due to the workers into bank accounts in their names in Holland, Higgins led a team to Amsterdam and secured the transfer of the funds to the workers' own accounts. The Labour Court recommended Gama pay each worker €8,000 for each year's service in settlement, but by the time it did so, many had already returned to Turkey, their jobs in Ireland gone and, with them, their work permits.

This was the year which also saw Irish Ferries hire a Filipino woman as a hairdresser at €1 per hour for an 80-hour week, and fire her when news of her working conditions broke. The same company subsequently attempted to dispense with its Irish workforce, in a reflagging exercise designed to allow it employ cheaper foreign labour.

Joe Higgins told the Dáil: "The conditions sought by Irish Ferries for their new workers can only be described as semi-bonded labour. They will slave for 84 hours per week... for €3.50 per hour. That is a mere €3.50 more than the galley slaves of ancient Rome except, I am sure, if we were around in those days, the galley bosses would have saved us guff about obeying workers' rights. The reality is the naked greed evident here for profit from exploited labour places the moral standards of the likes of Irish Ferries somewhere between those of a slum landlord and a slave trader."

Migrant labour was abused throughout the Irish economy – in meat packing plants, on mushroom farms, in shops, as domestic workers in private homes. A key part of the problem, advocates say, is the system of granting work permits to the employer, not the worker – giving the employer effective control over the worker's right to work in Ireland. A much anticipated green-card measure announced by Micheál Martin at the Department of Enterprise was supposed to address this; in the end, he merely changed the rules superficially so that migrant workers would themselves hold their work permit, but it would remain tied to the one employer.

Mary Harney: a danger to health

In March the Travers report was published saying that the government had been illegally charging the elderly for nursing home care for nearly 30 years. The report said there had been a "systemic corporate failure. There were also shortcomings at political level over the years since 1976 in not probing and questioning more strongly and assiduously the issues underlying the practices of charges for long-stay care in health board institutions." The report focused on the failures at administrative rather than ministerial level.

Harney compounded the situation by not accepting any responsibility for the failure. She defended her position, and that of former health minister Micheál Martin, by saying that it was a failure of successive governments, not theirs alone, and that it was a failure of the system. The only government reprimand was to the secretary general of the Department of Health, Michael Kelly, who was moved sideways to the Higher Education Authority. The government will have to pay back over 315,000 people for the illegal deducted charges – costing them over €2 billion. It has yet to outline how or when these payments will be made.

In July the PPARS (Personnel, Payroll and Related Systems) story came to light when it emerged that a HSE employee had been mistakenly paid €1 million by the system. At the time the HSE blamed it on "human error" and said the system was "working well and will be extended to all staff". In October they announced that they would suspend the rolling out of PPARS because of major faults in the system. In November it emerged that consultants Deloitte & Touche were paid almost €40 million for work on the project before its national roll-out was suspended. In December a Comptroller and Auditor General report said the scheme cost €131 million up to August 2005 – €57 million of that on consultants and contractors. The projected cost of fully rolling out the system to the end of the year was €195 million. Recently the Tánaiste has said that while the system experienced teething problems, it is now operational and paying over 32,000 staff.

There were more people on trolleys in A&E units in the last week in November in 2005 than there were for the same period in 2004, despite Mary Harney's claim on 29 January that she expected "real and measurable improvements to take place in the coming months in the delivery of A&E services". This has not happned and figures show she has failed her own "A&E litmus test".

A report published by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) in November showed that the Government pays €40 million for every €22 million invested in private hospitals through the tax incentive scheme for private hospitals. It recommended instantly stopping the current plan underway to build private hospitals on public grounds and advocates prioritising the provision of long term care to the elderly and free primary healthcare.

Pope Benedict XVI low-key menace

A new Pope was elected on 28 April: Joseph Ratzinger, who took the name Pope Benedict XVI. He was born at Marktl am Inn, Germany on 16 April 1927. He spent his childhood and adolescence in Traunstein, a small village near the Austrian border, 30 kilometers from Salzburg. In this environment, which he himself has defined as "Mozartian", he received what the Vatican says was "his Christian, cultural and human formation".

He was 12 when the Second World War commenced and 17 when, in early 1945, he was enrolled in an auxiliary anti-aircraft corps of the Nazi regime.

He was ordained a priest in 1951 and became a theologian. From 1962 to 1965 he participated in Vatican II as an "expert", as theological advisor to Cardinal Joseph Frings, Archbishop of Cologne. He became Archbishop of Munich and Freising in 1977 and was made a Cardinal in the same year. In 1981 he became Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In November 2002 he became Dean of the College of Cardinals and was thus the leading cleric in the Church in the aftermath of the death of John Paul II.

In the 26 days between the death of John Paul and his election as Pope he marked out the ground on which he stood with defiant clarity, railing against the mores and ideology of modern culture, establishing himself clearly as the leading intellectual and personality within the College of Cardinals.

Although initially he was given little chance of becoming Pope, by the time the conclave commenced he was almost the only choice.

His first eight months as Pope have been more low key than the Pontificate of his predecessor. However "instruction" on the criteria for "the discernment of vocations with regard to persons with homosexual tendencies in view of their admission to the seminary and to holy orders" was deeply offensive. Not only because of the inveterate prejudice the document exhibited towards homosexuals, but also the indifference – of which the document speaks silently but eloquently – to other "tendencies" among those attracted to the Catholic priesthood, such as paedophilia.

Among the Pope's early visitors were Bertie Ahern and Mary McAleese. There is a suspicion that Bertie Ahern's visit to the Vatican had been pre-arranged to take place in advance of an expected referendum on the new EU Constitution, which fails to make reference to God. The suspicion is that Bertie's visit might have been intended to reassure voters at home of his continued awareness of the spiritual. Mary McAleese's visit probably has a less devious explanation: possibly nothing else to do that week.

Pope John Paul II

Death in a global world

The most famous person in the world and perhaps the most revered, Pope John Paul II, died almost in front of his adoring grieving admirers at 10.37pm (Irish time) on 2 April. His death had been well signaled in advanced by repeated hospitalisations, his growing infirmity and his poignant appearance at the famous Papal window overlooking St Peter's Square when his voice failed. According to those around him during his last days, he died serenely. The extraordinary manifestations of public grief and affection for the deceased Pope took everyone by surprise, for this was no uncontroversial Pontiff.

He was seen to have restored much of the authoritarianism of the old pre-Vatican II Church, he cut off discussion on women's admission to the priesthood, he was indifferent (at best) for a long period to the issue of clerical child abuse. But aside from that he made significant headway in reaching out to the Eastern Orthodox Churches, he was a voice for peace and justice in the world and he had a special charisma, rivaled only, perhaps, by Nelson Mandela. On 28 June the cause for "the beatification and canonization of the Servant of God, John Paul II (Karol Wojtvla), Supreme Pontiff", was opened. On 28 April 2005, the new Pope, Benedict XVI had dispensed with the five-year waiting period following the death of the candidate for beatification and canonisation.