“Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.” Benito Mussolini’s formulation remains one of the most enduring definitions of modern totalitarianism.
The hyperventilated discussion about the new national maternity hospital has revealed some surprising – and not so surprising – tendencies of most of the political leadership in Ireland.
Notwithstanding the disrespect being shown to the legacy, history, hard-work and vocations of the various religious orders who have been involved in education and healthcare in Ireland before the State even existed, and all through its dysfunctional birth-pangs right up to its current adolescence, the current tenor of discussion should be frightening to anyone with any understanding of history.
Despite the Sisters of Charity, who own the land on which the hospital is to be built, virtually giving away the land for free to provide a State hospital – in which is has divested any possible influence over its ethos, along with commitments (ill-advised) that there will be no interference with the provision of whatever legal services (ie abortion) the State wishes to provide – the protests continue.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said in the Dáil on Tuesday that “ownership is a key issue” but that he does not believe that hospital governance “will be influenced by any religious organisation”. St Vincent’s Hospital Group also released a statement in which it said that “for the avoidance of doubt” the new NMH “will be clinically independent”. So, why the fuss?
Why the protests continue should be fairly obvious – it is not for any objective reason, but for the cause of an ideology and a prejudice against the religious orders. It is clear that there is no possibility, let alone a probability, that a religious ethos will exist or provide an obstacle to things like abortions being carried out, but this does not satisfy the mob. Submission is not enough, nothing less than annihilation will suffice.
But that should not be the main concern. The mob is just a dog barking at the wind in comparison to the political discourse now taking place.
What should be of much greater concern is when the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister ape the Labour Party and Sinn Fein leadership in claiming State funding should mean State ownership, State ethos, State power and State compulsion. When Fine Gael, Fianna Fail, Labour, the Social Democrats and Sinn Fein all agree that the State should have the power of monopoly and compulsion when it comes to spending taxpayers money to override the right to private property and enforce a State (read secular) ethos where publicly funds are used, it is clear we are in the realm of Mussolini’s diktat.
When the issue over the maternity hospital was raised in the Dáil Taoiseach Micheal Martin reiterated his view that “when the State is investing, the State should own”. Where does that line begin and end? Does the provision of social welfare imply ownership of the unemployed? With a monopoly on coercive powers and a monopoly on taxes, there is no possibility for resistance. Civic space disappears when the State no longer supports but competes with and buys out civil society. Pluralism of service providers, plurality of ethe/ethoses, all parts of a health and functioning pluralist democratic society, becomes a distant memory when all public services are seen as the property of the State.
Not content with a monopoly on public goods, the State also wants to ensure that whatever it does not own, but funds, does not diverge from the State’s preferred ethos. Nothing against the State.
Disappointingly, An Taoiseach also claimed the Health system had evolved in Ireland in a ‘very odd way’. Without explaining what he meant by this remark, it would be safe to construe it as something along the lines of: the State was a basket-case and the Religious Orders filled the gaps in healthcare and education, and the State has never figured out a way to wrest control and ownership from them because the Constitution protects private property and the rights of parents as the primary educators of their children.
Clearly, both the Taoiseach and Tanaiste are frustrated with these provisions as rather than seeing the State as the Trustee of taxpayer funds there is now a tendency to see the purchasing power of taxes as endowing ownership rights on the State – and compulsory ownership at that – stating that the State has invested “huge monies in hospitals where it doesn’t have ownership and that’s not entirely satisfactory into the future”.
In an ideal world, if the taxpayer is paying for the new hospital, they should own it, he said, which is of course a nonsense. The taxpayer owns nothing and no taxpayer will ever be able to put any claim to ownership. Supporting the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar underlines the requirement for State ownership without ever moving beyond assertion, doubling down on the demand that “This hospital has to be publicly owned.” Why does it have to be? Look at the fiasco across the city at the National Children’s Hospital. The State’s track record, when tasked to do anything, is hardly exemplary. It is far better off being a custodian of funds to let others do something well. The State never fails to mess things up but it forever wipes the slate clean at election time amid the promises of neverending change.
For good measure, Labour Leader Alan Kelly called for a compulsory purchase order – meaning the State should forcibly buy the land, a clarion call for many who think the State should be able to expropriate what it wants for the public or common good, over-riding private property concerns. Who could argue against healthcare? Health trumps everything. Except it doesn’t – and in this case, there is no question of healthcare not being provided, so the necessary and sufficient conditions for a land-grab by the State do not exist. Mary Lou also called on the Taoiseach to confirm there would be an urgent full transfer to State ownership – without ever offering a recommendation as to how that might happen, probably indicative of how Sinn Fein views government and a harbinger for the future.
Worrying, yes, when all the political leaders clamour for State monopolisation of services and summary expropriation of property, hiding behind a hysterical witch-hunt against a religious bogey-man, but even more so when no-one within or outside the political arena seems to hear the echoes of Mussolini in the background. And just in case no one remembers: Mussolini was a fascist.
David Reynolds