In Ireland people liked to talk about "what caring people we are, what generous people we are, sending missionaries overseas, and all that sort of thing," said the Governor of Mountjoy prison. "But," continued Mr John Lonergan at a weekend conference, "I cannot find as much compassion (here) as would lick a stamp."
Addressing the Simon Community's 20th annual conference in Swords, Co Dublin, he said the State had entered "an era of success, of me feinism, . . . .where everyone must be successful."
But not everyone was equipped to be successful, and "the successful don't give one spit for those who can't make it." In Ireland in 1997 "the weak are being left behind."
He criticised a recent judgment of Mr Justice Kinlen of the High Court, which he felt underscored this success ethic. In a case concerning what were felt to be excessive lawyer's fees, referred for arbitration by the Taxing Master, Mr Justice Kinlen found in favour of allowing the fees on the grounds that if you want the top service you must pay for it.
Mr Lonergan speculated on who could afford such service.
"There are," he said, "human gods in Irish society who . . . milk the system to the bitter end, and have no concern for others." They are "so full of themselves," with people "afraid to sneeze in front of them."
What was needed was "a genuine effort at inclusiveness," he said, but the gap in Irish society was getting bigger, and he could not detect "any willingness at all to deal with it."
Financial institutions should take a greater social role, he felt, "and have a greater social conscience." They should apply the same talent they had done to "creaming off the Celtic Tiger" towards a wider social responsibility.
It was "obnoxious," he felt, that some directors and shareholders were being awarded "£3 and £4 million a year while the deprived are being ignored." He also found some powerful people "obnoxious in their power, because of vanity - they want to be seen using that power."
Where children of the well-of were concerned, "the objective is clear," he said. "They (parents) must have success on their hands." They get the best care while still in the womb, are stimulated at creches, play-schools, private schools, grind schools, institutes, until they arrive at university, from where it's on to the gravy train.
Then "away they go to become totally selfish - to get the big house, the big car, foreign villas."
He contrasted their lives with a child born to two drug addicts in a deprived area.
The average family size of prisoners in Mountjoy in 1996 was seven, compared with a national average of two. Such families preferred a quiet, unstimulated child. An active/hyperactive one would be slapped down.
There was no preparation for school, or emphasis on going to school, as it had "no value at the end."
By the age of 16, over 80 per cent of the population of Mountjoy had left school, with just 7 per cent continuing until 16. Third-level education was not even on the horizon.
So "they don't have the equipment, and the Celtic Tiger passes by."
Eight per cent of the population at Mountjoy have been homeless, while 56 per cent of those there at any one time come from the same six Dublin postal districts. Ninety per cent were unemployed.
He noted that in the past year alone the numbers of young "16/17/18-year-old women" in Mount joy had doubled, "almost every single one a chronic drug addict, and all have children - two or three - by different fathers."
He speculated about the future of those children. "They have no hope," he said. "Real help, real support is what they need, but I don't see any being made available."
He recalled seeing a red-headed traveller child playing in the muck at a campsite in Tallaght recently, and wondering whether that child was destined to be a guest of his in Mountjoy one day.
"We hear a lot about the right to life of the unborn, but why do we think so little about the right to life of the born?"
He commended members of Simon at the conference. "In 1997 very few people give as you do," he said, "very few give of their time and of themselves." The work Simon did was "invaluable," and most of it went unnoticed.
But the lack of compassion and care on the part of mainstream society, he said, meant there would continue to be a need for such voluntary groups.
