In fairness, every other left wing hobby horse lobby group in Ireland already gets taxpayer funding, so why should the prostitutes, of all people, be left out? Well, they’re left out no longer. The full, ahem, ins and outs of how the money was channelled from your pockets into the pockets of the campaign to legalise prostitution are reported, here, by our friends at the Sunday Times:
The Sex Workers’ Alliance of Ireland (SWAI) has received €135,000 from the state in equality funding, despite being refused money from the Department of Justice last year because the group did not accept that “prostitution is inherently exploitative of vulnerable people”.
SWAI, which lobbies for the decriminalisation of sex work to allow those in the industry to work “without fear, judgment or stigma”, got the grant from the Equality Fund, which is administered by Rethink Ireland.
Let’s make no bones, by the way, about what the purpose of the Sex Worker’s Alliance is: They campaign, openly, and unapologetically, for the full legalisation of prostitution.
And it is important to say this: In any democratic society worthy of the name, anybody who wishes to campaign for the full legalisation of prostitution should be free to do so. There are arguments for it, and there are (in my view stronger) arguments against it. There is nothing wrong with having the debate, or holding the position.
But why on earth should the taxpayer be asked to pay for that campaign?
The money, of course, will be said to be going towards the provision of “services” for Prostitutes. That is how these things are always dressed up: A lobby group on behalf of a particular interest is given funding that officially, at least, is to provide “counselling”, or “career guidance”, and so forth. In practice, that money ends up going to employ full time staff, offices, and infrastructure that strengthen the NGO’s ability to engage in public debate.
In any case, funding the Sex Worker’s Alliance for the purpose of providing services to prostitutes is entirely unnecessary: The state already funds Ruhama, an organisation that provides services to prostitutes, to the tune of €675,000 in its most recent audited accounts.
What services can the Sex Workers Alliance provide for €135,000 that Ruhama cannot provide from within their €675,000?
The answer, of course, is: nothing. The difference between the two organisations is that Ruhama views prostitution as a curse, and something to help women escape from, whereas the SWAI promotes it as a potentially empowering career, and something people should be able to legally choose for themselves. The SWAI is mainly, and primarily, an advocacy group.
It seems remarkable that this argument even has to be made, but here it is anyway: when the state funds lobby groups who are seeking to change the law, it is an act of circular corruption, because it cuts out the ordinary citizen, who does not receive taxpayer funding to make an argument in opposition.
What’s more, it leads to endless bloat: Once you fund a “service”, it becomes politically very difficult to defund it. When the SWAI sets up an “abuse hotline” for sex workers, or some urgent-sounding thing like that, a politician who takes away the money will be accused of “defunding vital services”.
And of course, the cost of those services will rise, either on paper or in reality, every year, meaning that politicians must contribute more money to “fund vital services”.
That is how we have ended up in the position where ten billion euros – ten thousand million euros, in simpler terms – ends up flowing to these NGO’s every year, and how they have become so powerful.
In an ideal world, there would be a politician in Ireland worth supporting, who would pledge simply to turn off the tap upon taking power. But there is no such politician. In part, of course, because anybody who tried to make that argument would be denounced as a far-right extremist by, amongst others, all the taxpayer funded NGOs providing “vital services”.
You are all being taken for a ride. But it is your own fault. You keep voting for it. And Sinn Fein, my friends, will not change anything about this model. After all, haven’t you heard how much money they want to put in to “vital services”?