Achieving a shared future
With elections looming next year, new Social Development Minister Alex Attwood does not know how long he will have to put his stamp on the department. He spoke to Meadhbh Monahan about the need to encourage integration and maximise the benefits of devolution.
“We only have 10 years to get North/South right” otherwise Ireland will be “by-passed” by the rest of the world.
That’s according to reports given to Social Development Minister Alex Attwood, who sees all-island working as central to his remit. Four weeks into the new position, the former Policing Board member is aware of the time constraints facing him on all fronts.
“If we don’t pull together and integrate how this island [organises] its business, planning, education, health service and spatial strategies, we are going to lose out,” Attwood states.
Latin America, in particular Brazil, is set to follow China as the world’s new emerging market, and Ireland will not be able to compete unless it quickly “positions itself around research and development and innovation.”
After talking to business leaders in Northern Ireland and the Republic, and senior officials in the Department of the Taoiseach, Attwood became aware that the analysis that time is running out is widely regarded as being accurate. “If we don’t get it right Dublin will suffer, but Belfast will suffer even more,” he adds.
While the SDLP advocates a united Ireland, Attwood – whose family comes from Cork, and refers to himself as “a first generation Northerner” – insists that “this is not a party political thing for me. It’s a sign that North/South is a self-evident truth and that it makes sense to save money and get better services.”
He points to a report containing 37 recommendations for a North/South health service which was never published because “people might think it’s a hot potato.” Attwood believes that “if we don’t handle these hot potatoes, everyone’s going to lose out.”
This is Attwood’s first stint as a Minister. His impressions so far are that “it’s more difficult that you can imagine.”
“You have to keep your concentration levels up all the time because you are receiving questions from departmental officials, journalists, Assembly members and the public, plus I have a very busy diary and an enormous amount of paper work,” he remarks.
Technically social development relates to housing, benefits and urban regeneration, but a “less dry” definition, according to Attwood is: “it is the department that helps the hundreds and thousands of people who rely on it to get from one end of the day to the other, to have a decent house, to take care of their kids and to make sure that a difficult situation isn’t made more difficult.”
Shared services
Northern Ireland must act now to “break free from the past” by providing shared rather than duplicated services and ending segregated housing, Attwood contends. With only 42 weeks to leave an “imprint” on the department, he is determined to fulfil Margaret Ritchie’s commitments, while putting his “own shape” on things.
Sixteen neighbourhoods have already publicly declared their preference to become shared neighbourhoods and Attwood will soon announce another 14, to make up the figure of 30 that was previously announced by Ritchie. From now on, Attwood will proof all housing and regeneration strategies against shared future standards.
In relation to the ‘peace walls’, the most obvious sign of segregation in Belfast, Attwood believes that while the feelings and the hurt within various communities must be considered, “we must also push, just like we did with policing, to get society to a much better place.”
Housing
Attwood praises the building of 1,838 new social and affordable houses. He aims to authorize a further 2,000 this year. “I will die in a ditch to get that number,” he claims.
Housing need is still a major problem in the province, Attwood has come to realise. After Edwin Poots was called to a house on Battenburg Street on the Upper Shankill, Attwood has asked for a briefing about the area and intends to make a private visit.
“He [Poots] said the smell of damp lingered with him for hours after he left,” Attwood explains.
In addition, Attwood was visited in his Andersonstown Road constituency office by an 83 year-old woman who has been living in her private rented house for 75 years, using an outdoor toilet.
“When she expressed an interest in buying that house, it wasn’t offered to her properly; the estate agent’s wife bought it. Her housing conditions are appalling but in my view that wasn’t handled right. She was denied that chance to buy it,” he revealed.
“That’s the sort of intolerable stuff that’s happening in our city.”
The Housing Commission’s report was food for thought for the Minister who says: “If there are ways in which we can manage our stock better, get the Housing Executive to work better, and find ways of accessing finance without putting in jeopardy the jewel of the Housing Executive stock, then we will consider all that.
“I think the big point in the Housing Commission report is that housing should be on a secure financial basis, and should be government-funded. We can’t have a hand-to-mouth existence where on a year-to-year basis we don’t know what budget we are getting.”
Regeneration
Urban regeneration is a brighter area, according to Attwood.
“If you go into city centre at the moment there are building works going on and if you walk 20 yards to Anne Street you will see what urban regeneration means.”
The consequence of this development, he contends, is that more private businesses will open up, circulating money and stimulating economic regeneration.
“This is government money that gets huge returns, disproportionate to the money you put in,” he states.
He points out that if the department does not get sufficient funding, projects such as the networking centre at Templemore Avenue “that Peter Robinson, Robin Newton and Sammy Wilson have publicly, and quite rightly endorsed” will not go ahead.
This project is backed by Attwood because it could stabilise that area of lower east Belfast which is only a “few feet” away from a peace line. He attended a breakfast in support of the venture with loyalists Billy Hutchinson and Sammy Douglas because he wanted to voice the message that “there is a lot of good things going on within unionism and unionist communities.”
“If you can regenerate [the Templemore school building], you can take the tensions from that area and open up the area in a cross-community way,” Attwood states.
“That unit would be an anchor for potential businesses, services and voluntary groups. That’s a no-brainer as far as I’m concerned.”
Social security
Northern Ireland is the only devolved region with responsibility for paying out social security, although its policy mirrors that in Great Britain. Attwood is concerned about the “hints of old Tory attitudes” which he sees “in the guise of a new coalition government.”
He wrote to the new Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith requesting a meeting to discuss the region’s unique position.
In that letter, Attwood referred to the legacy of unemployment and lack of education permeating some families and communities in the region, the fact that local democracy is “still tender” and the dissident threat.
When asked if he thinks these pressures will be taken on board by Duncan Smith, Attwood replied: “I will see when I meet him. He will offer sympathy, but whether he will offer support remains to be seen.”
Some parties want Northern Ireland to have its own fiscal powers but Attwood warns that this would not necessarily be a solution to relying on a budget from the UK Government.
“£3 billion comes across the water just for social security. That’s the scale of what we are talking about. If we were to have our own fiscal powers, would we be able to continue that?”
Even the technicalities of paying the benefits, according to Attwood, would be a huge cost to the province because an expensive social security computer system, based in England, is currently used.
“I want to have a discussion about parity but let’s have our eyes wide open and look for every opportunity to have more fiscal independence around corporation tax and the social fund [the grant or interest-free loan given to those who can’t access this from a bank],” he remarks. He adds that he wants to be “radical but not reckless.”
“If a society can’t be guaranteed a safe and decent home, people will ask bigger questions about devolution,” he warns.
Devolution
Attwood says that he has spent the first few weeks getting into government, but the rest of his term will be spent getting into power.
To do this he, and the rest of the Northern Ireland Executive, have many walls to climb.
“If we have been able to move the peace, the politics and the police to where it is today, we now have to move that politics to the next phase and do the same transformation.”
Because the world looks to Northern Ireland as an example “we now have to show the rest of the world, and ourselves, that we can lead further, and that means a shared future,” Attwood insists.
A line from TE Lawrence’s ‘Seven Pillars of Wisdom’ echoes some elements of the Executive, according to Attwood.
He quotes: “When a new world dawns, the old men came out again and took our victory to re-make the likeness of the former world they knew … We stammered that we had worked for a new heaven and a new earth, and they thanked us kindly and made their peace.”
Attwood explains that since the Good Friday Agreement, there are some “old men”, who have been in the Civil Service for a long time and are “used to the old order.” He wants them to know that there is a new world order that must be used by all politicians to get into power to “redeem the powerless.”
Party political in-fighting has been hampering the Executive from delivering effective policies, Attwood believes. When money becomes tight, parties “have a tendency to walk off the pitch” and in advance of the Assembly elections in May next year, Attwood is worried that there is a danger that politicians will get “caught up emotionally in who has biggest party and who will be First Minister.”
He warns: “If our politics is based on who has more power around the Executive table or who wants to be king of the castle, we won’t get over these walls.”
He also points to the “short-of-the-mark” shared future strategy, the failed local government reform and the “limited” response to the recession, claiming: “People value devolution but they doubt what it delivers. There has been a lot of politics and little results.”
Moving forward, Attwood urges his Executive colleagues to take the opportunities “to shape devolution in a much better way” and to “bring about the levels of change needed to bring people into a shared future.”
“That’s what I mean about going into power, not just government,” he concludes.
Profile: Alex Attwood
Attwood’s political philosophy is “greatly influenced” by Robert Kennedy who once said the role of a politician is to “search out the reasons for alienation and indeed to learn from them.” Other influences are John Hume and Seamus Mallon, who he describes as “icons.”
Married with two children, Nora (4) and Anna (15 months), he enjoys running marathons when he gets some free time.
