Bertie: bowling alone, or bridging?

In case the Taoiseach is serious about promoting social capital, Village suggests some initiatives he could take.

RAPID

The RAPID programme was a classic government social capital initiative – a massive injection of funds into poor communities, designed in a way to improve community participation and empowerment. Two billion was promised over a three year programme. But at the end of the three-year programme, only a fraction of that had been delivered.

Local government

Noel Dempsey included direct elections for lord mayor as one of the reforms in his Local Government Act – but Martin Cullen then removed it. Directly-elected lord mayors, as one part of strengthened local government, would improve local democracy and encourage more participation in the political system.

Travellers

It's difficult to be that worried about your social capital when you're living on the side of a dangerous road with no sanitation or water facilities, or schools or health care for your children. Local authorities have been required to implement Traveller Accommodation Plans since 1998 – no local authority has yet fulfilled its plan.

Asylum

The Department of Justice is steadily moving to deport failed asylum seekers – including a number of young people who came to Ireland as unaccompanied minors. These have been to schools here, many have the Leaving Cert and want to go on to college, and they have joined clubs and made friends. They have launched an appeal to the Minister for Justice: Please Let Us Stay (PLUS). They enrich Irish society. Throwing them out would promote cynicism and alienation amongst many of our schoolchildren, who have befriended them. Let them stay.

One-off rural housing

One-off housing is bad for communities. A significant proportion of new houses are holiday homes – these stand empty most of the year. And even if built for locals, one-off housing dilutes the sense of community in villages and promotes a car dependency – which in turn encourages people to drive further to larger towns for their shopping and services, further weakening local community ties. In April, Dick Roche eased restrictions on one-off housing.

Overseas aid

In 2000, as part of its campaign for a Security Council seat, Ireland gave a commitment to increase foreign aid spending to 0.7 per cent of GNP. Many poorer countries were impressed, and backed us. We then dropped the commitment (officially, last year, but in practice, back in 2002).

Boosting Irish aid to achieve the 0.7 target on or before 2010 (and actually reaching the target this time) would be good for global social capital, helping to foster connections between "third" and "first" world, and for social capital in poor countries, where Development Cooperation Ireland can help ensure the money is spent in a way that fosters development and indigenous social capital, and doesn't undermine it.

Decentralisation

The Government had a model national planning strategy in place, looking to promote "balanced regional development" around a "network of gateways and hubs" – classic social capital lingo. (This was the National Spatial Strategy.) And then Charlie McCreevy pulled his decentralisation plan out of his budget-day hat. Undersubscribed, costly and potentially hugely inefficient, decentralisation could destroy social capital within the civil service without bringing much benefit to communities.

Volunteering

The White Paper on Supporting Voluntary Activity was published in 2000 – it was supposed to be the blueprint for building social capital and supporting voluntary activity in Ireland. But a consultant's report last year found little progress had been made on it; funding schemes were cancelled, reduced by half or approved years late; and commitments to establish volunteer units in government departments weren't met.

Are you a budding social capitalist? Have some ideas for how Bertie could and should put Robert Putnam's ideas into practice? Or should government leave well alone and stick to the big-spend stuff – or try and minimise its interventions in the first place? Write to us at letters@villagemagazine.ie or 44 Westland Row, Dublin 2, or text 087 7845500