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News22 Irish ExaminerMonday, 14.09.2020

Group calls for new ‘social contract’ fromGovernmentprofits passing through Ire-land.

Colette Bennet, researchanalyst at SJI, says that thestrength of the socia lcontract is in its ability to im-prove the quality of life andwel lbeing of al l Ir ishcitizens.

“We welcome the ambitionof Government to provideeach citizen with accessibleand affordable healthcare,housing, education, child-care and disability services,and the commitment to a liv-ing wage,” she said.

“How this ambition is de-liveredwill be a yardstick forhow committed Governmentreally is to a new socialcontract.”■ The policy document can beread on the Social Justice Ire-land website at socialjustice.ie

pean average. The proposedcontract has 80 recommen-dations, including:■ Fully resource the imple-mentation of Sláintecare;■ Set a target of 20% of allhousing stock in the countryto be social housing;■ Introduce a floor of basicincome and basic services;■ Introduce State-led child-care;■ Reintroduce windfal lgains tax at 80%;■ Introduce a floor of basicincome and basic services;■ Ringfence Covid-relatedcosts incurred in 2020 and2021 to deal with the deficit;■ Increase the minimumwage to the level of the livingwage;■ Introduce a minimum ef-fective rate of corporationtax of 6% on all corporate

dening the tax base”.SJI points out that this

country’s overall tax take isstill below that of the Euro-

to set up a tax commissionwith a mandate to set out “apathway towards increasingthe total tax-take and broa-

post-Covid world.“The National Economic

Plan — to be published onBudget day — must giveequal weight to environ-mental, social, and economicconsiderations,”said SJIdirector Sean Healy.

“If not, this Governmentwill simply repeat the mis-takes of the past.

“If Government is seriousabout our long-term re-covery, about securing ourpublic finances in a changedworld, decarbonising theeconomy, and preparing fordigital and technologicaltransformation, then theNational Economic Planmust be underpinned by anew social contract thattreats our environment, so-ciety, and economy equally.”

The contract also proposes

Michael Clifford

An extra €3bn in taxes mustbe raised in various ways, in-cluding an effective mini-mum rate for corporations,in order to get a long-term re-covery under way, accordingto a new policy documentfrom Social Justice Ireland(SJI).

The anti-poverty agencyalso recommends that onefifth of all new homes builtshould be for social housingand that all costs associatedwith the pandemic be ring-fenced so as not to impact onspending in a recovery.

SJI is launching a new “so-cial contract” today as ablueprint for a recovery,which, it says, takes accountof the wide range of factorsthatmust be addressed in the

Social Justice Ireland director Sean Healy says the Government mustnot ‘repeat the mistakes of the past’. Picture: Denis Minihane

A pair of anglers fly fishing from a boat on the lake at Gougane Barra, Co Cork. Picture: David CreedonA fish and a prayer

Parentsmay getoptionto recordstillborns■ Register of stillborn deaths‘would reflect changing society’SeánMcCárthaigh

Parents of stillborn babiesmay be given the option of re-cording their child’s death ina public register.

In response to a parlia-mentary question from SinnFéin TD Pádraig Mac Loch-lainn, Social Protection Min-ister Heather Humphreyshas signalled she is open toconsidering legis lat ionwhich would allow a registerof stillborn deaths to beavailable for public access toreflect a change in social atti-tudes on the issue.

However, she said that anymeasure should still ensurethat the wishes of parentswho want privacy surround-ing the birth of a stillbornchild are safeguarded.

Since January 1, 1995, par-ents of a stillborn child herehave been able to registertheir child’s birth in the Still-births Register, even if theywere born before that date.

It contains information onthe child’s name and thenames and background oftheir parents as well as de-tails on the time, date andplace of birth, gender, weightand gestational age.

However, the StillbirthsRegister is not available forpublic inspection.

The number of registeredstillbirths was 162 in 2017which is the latest year forwhich figures are available.The rate has more thanhalved since the 1990s whenthe number of stillbirths wasabout 300 with the rate at sixstillbirths per 1,000 livebirths in 1998. A stillbirthcan only be registered if thebaby weighed at least 500g orhad a gestational age of atleast 24 weeks.

Mr MacLochlainn said alot of hurt was caused to par-ents who did not have the op-tion of recording the birth oftheir stillborn child publicly,while there was also the de-sirability of having that in-formation available for fu-ture generations.

At the time of the estab-lishment of the Stillbirths

Register 25 years’ ago, MsHumphreys said it was con-sidered that no public inter-est would be served by hav-ing the information on a reg-ister which was open to thepubl ic . “Also given therelatively small number ofstillbirths each year, it wasfelt that an openly accessibleregister could be seen as en-croaching on the privacy ofthe persons concerned,” MsHumphreys said.

However, she acknowl-edged that it might now beappropriate to revisit theissue due to “the passage oftime”. The minister said shewas aware that a number ofbereaved parents had ex-pressed an interest in mak-ing information about theirstillborn children availableto the public as was the casewith other registers onbir ths, deaths and mar-riages.

“These parents want sib-lings, grandparents, relativ-es, friends and future gener-ations to be able to have ac-cess to their entries in theregister of stillbirths,” shesaid.

Ms Humphreys said itwould remain important inany examination of the issueto continue to protect the in-terests of parents who mightprefer to keep their personalinformation private.

The possible introductionof a public register for still-births has been warmly wel-comed by Féileacáin — theSti l lbir th and NeonatalDeathAssociation of Ireland,which has have been cam-paigning on the issue for thepast decade.

The organisation’s co-founder, Mairie Creegan,whose daughter, Liliana,was delivered stillborn in2006, said a public registerwas needed to properly re-cognise the existence of still-born children.

Ms Creegan said shewould be disappointed if any-one in modern Ireland wouldstill think there was a reasonto hide the existence of astillborn baby.

became dictator of Spain followinghis coup d’etat the previous day.■ 1901: US president WilliamMcKinley died in Buffalo, NewYork, from gunshot wounds in-flicted by an assassin on September6.Hewas succeeded inoffice byVicePresident Theodore Roosevelt.■ 1868: The first recorded hole-in-one in golf was scored by Scotsman‘Young’ TomMorris at the 166-yard8th hole at Prestwick during theOpen Championship.■ 1852: British soldier and states-man Arthur Wellesley, the Duke ofWellington, died. His greatest mili-tary achievement was the defeat ofNapoleon at the Battle of Waterlooin 1815, and he later became primeminister, serving from 1828-30.■ 1851: James Fenimore Cooper,US novelist famous for his novels offrontier adventure, including TheLast of the Mohicans, died.■ 1837: Tiffany and Co opened itsfirst jewellery store at 259 Broad-way in New York. The first day’ssales total was $4.98.■ 1814: Francis Scott Keywrote hispoem, The Star Spangled Banner,which later became the US nationalanthem, after witnessing the Brit-ish bombardment of Fort McHenryinMaryland during theWar of 1812.■ 1812: Napoleon entered Moscowin his disastrous invasion of Russia.The city was set on fire by the re-treating Russians and burned untilSeptember 19, destroying much ofthe capital.■ 1752: Britain and its coloniesadopted the Gregorian calendar,rectifying the error which had builtup in the Julian calendar over thecenturies by eliminating 11 days.Parliament decreed that the dayafter September 2 would be Septem-ber 14, meaning there are no refer-ences to September 3-13, 1752, inBritish and American history.■ 1741: German-born Englishcomposer George Frideric Handelfinished his Messiah oratorio, fol-lowing 23 days of non-stop work.■ 1321: Dante Alighieri, Italy’sgreatest poet and one of the pre-emi-nentwriters inWesterncivilization,died. His epic poem The DivineComedy is regarded as a landmarkin world literature.

Patrick Swayze, pictured here with Jennifer Grey in a scene from the movie ‘DirtyDancing’, died on this day in 2009, aged 57.

the US called off the entire seasonfollowing a month-long strike byplayers. It was the first time since1904 there had been noWorld Series.■ 1982: Princess Grace of Monaco,formerly American movie starGrace Kelly, died in hospital follow-ing a car crash the previous day.■ 1975: An unemployed teacherwielding a kitchen knife slashedRembrandt’s priceless painting,‘The Nightwatch’, at its home inAmsterdam’s Rijksmuseum.■ 1959:The Soviet Union’s Lunik IIspacecraft crashed on to the mooneast of the Sea of Serenity, 36 hoursafter its launch. It was the firstman-made object to land on a celestialbody.■ 1955: LittleRichard recorded oneof his most famous songs, ‘TuttiFrutti’.■ 1940: The US Congress passedthe Selective Service Act, providingfor the first peacetime draft in thecountry’s history.■ 1937:Czech revolutionary leaderThomas Masaryk, who became thefirst president of Czechoslovakia in1918, died.■ 1930: Germany’s National Social-ist Party, the Nazis, scored a stun-ning election triumph by becomingthe second largest party in the Re-ichstag.■ 1923: Miguel Primo de Rivera

■ 2003: Yetunde Price, elder sisterof tennis stars Venus and SerenaWilliams, was shot dead.■ 2001: US Congress unanimouslyapproved $40bn for emergencyspending in the wake of the terrorattacks on New York and Washing-ton.■ 1998: Telecommunications com-pany WorldCommerged with MCIin a deal valued at over $43bn, thethird largest merger in telecomshistory.■ 1997: Elton John’s reworded ver-sion of Candle in the Wind, histribute to Britain’s Princess Diana,sold 600,000 copies in a single day.■ 1995: Body Worlds opened inTokyo, Japan, exhibiting humanbodies preserved by plastination, aprocess created by Gunther VonHagens in the 1970s. The travellingexhibitions have received morethan 37m visitors worldwide.■ 1994: Baseball team owners in

■ 2019: Oil prices soared afterdrone attacks on twomajor oil facil-ities in Saudi Arabia knocked outmore than half of its oil production.Houthi militants in Yemen claimedresponsibility but the US blamedIran.■ 2016: German pharmaceuticalgiant Bayer AG announced it wasbuying US agricultural companyMonsanto in a $66bn cash buyout.■ 2015: At least five countries inEurope’s visa-free Schengen zoneintroduced border controls as theimmigration crisis intensified, witharound 3,000 migrants from Syria,Afghanistan and north Africa ar-riving each day.■ 2010: France passed a resolutionbanning the wearing of the Islamicfull face veil in public after the sen-ate overwhelmingly approved themeasure by 246 votes to one against.■ 2009: Actor Patrick Swayze,whose hit films included DirtyDancing and Ghost, died fromcancer at age 57.■ 2008: An Aeroflot Boeing 737fromMoscow crashed shortly be-fore its scheduled landing in the cityofPerm inRussia’sUralmountains,killing all 88 on board. The crashwas attributed to engine failure.■ 2007: The first run on a Britishbank in more than a century wastriggered following revelations thatNorthern Rock had sought a rescueinjection of funds from the Bank ofEngland. Thousands of panickingsavers queued towithdrawmillionsof pounds from the UK’s eighth-biggest bank.■ 2006: Andrei Kozlov, deputychairman of Russia’s Central Bank,died in hospital hours after beingshot by contract killers. Officialssuspect the slaying was ordered bycrooked financiers unhappy withKozlov’s long-termdrive to cleanupRussia’s chaotic banking sector.■ 2005: Robert Wise, Oscar-win-ning director ofThe Sound of Musicand West Side Story, died in LosAngeles fromheart failure five daysafter his 91st birthday. During acareer that spanned more than 50years, Wise directed a total of 39films, including the first Star Trekmovie and sci-fi classic The Day theEarth Stood Still.

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