Report transcript in: A reflective interview exploring someone's experience being part of the Galway Citizen's Jury Project

Please Report the Errrors?

firstly, I was preparing for it with a group of people. Um,

who, you know,

were working with me and to try to set up this project a citizen jury project,

thinking it out, developing it

there. There were some very, very significant people.

I mean, there was a former secretary of the government.

There was a former director of a big institute personal administration,

How you can figure in the wheel, which is a big, um,

that published my report. So on. Apart from that,

it was a great sense of camaraderie.

Um oh, actually, I missed one lady who came on later on, um,

she she is head of a task, which is a think tank.

So there were about five or six and then two others, and another was in the university

university of

another private, uh, freelance consultant.

So there were a great, um, there was a great sense of camaraderie much more than just,

uh, you know, doing things and doing work.

That's one thing.

And then when the the jury got going,

it became something else again. There was a terrific sense.

That's the thing I remember. Mostly the most inspiring.

I suppose what I found.

But people you know, this group of people who just volunteered from, you know,

the citizens of Galway After hearing either a a radio programme or

in the national in the local newspaper,

they came together and they really gelled. They really were,

you know, kind of inspired.

There was a sense that they were inspired by something they were doing.

I really did get that sense, and and I got to know them well over two years,

we were working together for two years.

That's another factor

that they were. They were, actually,

you know, working hard at it for two years.

Um,

I also inspired by the simple idea they came up with,

um of, um, talking about, um,

you know, the idea being that they should talk to,

they want to hear and be taught by people working for the state of ground level.

That's how they wanted their.

We knew that we had to have some course in public administration.

This was the course they themselves designed.

And it was brilliant because

we had to get this group together, which was a lot of work.

But when we did, they came together.

There is something very significant to say, very particular to say.

And, um,

when they finally did so and then we were able to go to people in charge of the various

organisations and one was health with housing and public, uh, public, Um,

public security, not public security, is what we

talking about.

Social Security. Yeah,

Um,

so, you know, the whole thing was I just look back, kind of an amazement, actually.

And also the fact that you guys all these years

later start picking it up and running with it.

And the word was amazement.

I really am amazed.

But was it well received by the people in power?

Because I know you have these, uh, cartoons of, like,

the higher up ministers and everything.

And how did that go? Well, actually, that went very well. I mean,

but I can tell you that two out of three

institutions adopted a very specific change on the foot of this jury calling for it.

That's pretty good.

Yeah, this is the question. I wanna ask.

What was the specific things that got enacted or changed because of the

specific things was first of all, we asked the public services who came together.

What problem do you see?

And they came up with a very specific problem.

Supposing you're, uh, youngish.

You're doing pretty well.

But suddenly you you come up with a very serious illness that you lose your income,

you lose your job, possibly lose your housing.

OK?

So in order to deal with this situation, you have to First of all,

you not have much money, but you haven't got insurance.

So you have to approach the health authority.

You have to approach, um, then the housing and then social welfare.

But each time you do this, they ask you what's your you know, what are your details?

And of course,

anyone given details is a bit of a unpleasant affair. But when you're in the

you're also humiliated in that sort of situation. You know,

you are doing fine a few months ago and then suddenly

So it's humiliating thing to to give you details,

but they need to have it so you can't complain at one level.

But then the thing is,

I I go First of all say to you in housing and you ask

me in my details and I give it to you and that's fine.

Then I have to go down the road to social

welfare and they ask for exactly the same details.

And I say, Well, who are the people in housing?

And to be told that they can't do that because of, um, data protection?

And so you know, the the these public servants were saying,

This is painful for us in our mind for people coming in.

So we came up with this.

Now there were three or

the jury then said

a simple answer. And it was It was a simple answer. Give them a printout

of what you've just told them. I give you. I go to your health.

You can now print out to me. What I what I told you Next time I go to

hand in the printed paper and so on, so forth.

These are small things, but obviously in such a situation

that these public servants So it

is the word disheartening. I remember

in their report

on fine.

So that was adopted certainly by the social welfare who actually generalised it

to giving everyone a right to have to know the social welfare history.

OK, then it was also adopted by the County council.

Um, but the third one was the health authority, which in Ireland

is a very special study.

It's it's really it's known for being dysfunctional in the way it runs itself.

Um, and so we have put together two out of three very specific

results.

And, of course, it involved developing relations with the, you know, with the, uh,

various officials as well in advance.

You know,

we were really well known to the county Council because they were

at the start

with the the very man who I think he still is in social welfare.

He was very helpful and interested,

but then in in the health,

we got to one guy who would allow people social welfare to do, you know, to attend this

project.

But the person in charge of, um,

uh, credit cards was in Dublin and there was no intermediary.

Nothing was, was it was totally centralised.

So I went up to this guy I remember as well

talking about I just see him say to me,

I'm not going to give this guy an inch. He thinks he knows it all.

He thinks he's a smart ass

and he was He said things to me like, Well, we've had no feedback like that.

The reason is that it isn't wasn't in any position to have feedback.

You know what I mean?

But so I mean, it was

I mean, before you, it wasn't as if when, you know, you got in touch with me saying,

Oh, we achieved nothing.

You know, I was very proud of what we've done.

Um, but we didn't. We hadn't done any further, which is a pity.

But when you opened up this issue, now I feel

yes. And I feel it does justice to the sense of

determination, almost sheer sense of determination in the group they all times on.

I know it was only seven today,

but those things happen, but, um,

I I hope

there will be more today, actually, and find ways of finding out what happened.

They probably tell me.

And was there something that, uh, you would have liked to have enacted, but you got,

like, pushback.

Um,

sorry.

In relation to what?

During the, uh,

during the What's this thing? Uh, during the jury

during the jury.

But actually, the actual work,

you know, was very easy.

the toughest bit of my work on the jury was keeping two members in particular,

you know, kind of from taking over. These guys are just

valuable characters, you know.

And that's why I

No, I

just

just shut them up. And because

everyone knew, You know, if you got to move together and who are those two characters

you don't know and they don't accept

themselves, and these are good, hardest people. That's the other thing I realised,

you know,

maybe be a bit a bit of a handful, but they're good,

but there's nothing that

so we have.

Certainly the whole point of it was for people to come up with what they wanted.

But, you know, at the very start, it was very clear that

they were unhappy.

And in fact, there was a report who give you by a woman called Helen Newman

about the jurors, you know, an independent assessment.

And when I frustrated, I was very discouraged

because she the the the picture she painted. An accurate one

was of a lot of frustration and a lot of

annoyance and a lot of quite a lot of negativity.

But then I began to see you know, and and you began to see in the midst of this,

there's nothing.

This has nothing to do with the process of the jury.

This is to do with how they found the encounter with the state.

The jury thing was fine. For that point of view, there wasn't an issue.

So, so to speak.

I can I can send you that, um,

report if if I haven't already done so. Actually,

I think you did send me the report. It was the wheel, right?

Hm.

So it was the wheel.

No, no, this wasn't the wheel. No, no, this is this is something.

This is a confidential report done

for, Um, you know, when we were winding up.

So we commission report of how the internal dynamic of the jury,

you know, someone

someone who is a bit, you know, with with a more objective

profession assessment doesn't me say everything's right.

That's basically

and, uh, as I was taking the back at first

and as they discouraged. And now,

actually, no, they're talking about this experience of coming up against the state

that

is the jury to do.

And

why do you think there was a bit of a divide, though,

uh, like, I look into this questions of, uh, rural and urban in my own research.

Yeah.

What do you mean, it was a divide? I mean, it was

you know, you said that some people wanted, uh, to take over a bit

a negative way or anything like that. Yeah. No, this this This was not

a kind of a power play

consciously than anyone.

This is so two guys who once they got talking, you can't shut them up,

OK? They talk all day

that that most Irish people.

But this is a particularly bad case of it.

Uh, but you get it.

This is not this is not kind of people playing power politics, right?

In a movie like that, They just,

um you know, as as they

would push

with, sort of, you know,

push it back in them.

There was never any hard feelings, you know,

because, uh, they they knew they'd know self awareness to know that they

they can come on a bit strong at time.

So there was There was one character in the jury

which who was interesting perspective. He was

in a major dispute with the County Council,

and I decided in was kind of saying, Oh, this is only funded by the county Council.

What can you expect from it?

So I really put a lot of work into getting to stay on board, Really? A lot of work

to me

to talk

to him again. And so on so forth.

Eventually he did go on board, and eventually it reached a point where, you know,

normally each day, people would choose each meeting that the jurors would choose Um

a, um, what you call it,

um, a chairperson. OK,

but it got to the point where they stopped choosing and just left the job to

Terry.

You know,

because obviously you want to trust

you. You know,

a very competent man.

I mean,

how important to play a part in this session

on to me, he said, Look, I he does this a bit. A bit of

a thing when he says

that, but I'm not sure I'd be able

to make it

open my eyes and

work.

But at the same time, he's phenomenally, uh, you know, he does a lot of work,

you know,

and I wouldn't

and he did.

You know, as I say, he finally did come on board when I really But I had to work on him.

really played hard to get.

Um But, um, so he's the I think he now was taking the county council to court,

by the way,

uh,

and you know, so

at the same time. So I was very keen to have him

just

just to say, we don't have kind of nice people.

Just have nice people. Terrible

to say, But the others

anyway. Yeah, so that's the situation.

But I'd be happy to talk more and more about this and you can get a good sort of

story because there was plenty of things I would have done wrong.

I did do wrong, you know,

I would have done better.

OK, what could you have done better then? Do you think?

Ok, um,

now

we could start this at a time when Juries were not

sort of flavour of the month or any flavour at all.

They're just not

a future

I would have tried to get,

um, you know, more effective random selection. And to go on the,

you know,

get get a hold of the voters register and do some kind of

route in that way,

if we had if you had the resources to do that, you went and said someone Look,

will you do this?

And I say no,

you know, you know, that sort of thing. So

that's what I would would love to have done to start with.

Um then

also we did change. We were having these listening vibes around the country,

which were a bit of a disaster. In many ways, we didn't

We didn't do our publicity for them. We should we should have used.

We did have before we started a radio session with, um, you know,

talking about the jury, and we didn't I don't know how you look back and say,

How could I have not made use of that?

You know, we should have used that session this week.

We'll be having a meeting at such and such place.

So it would be an obvious place to get people gathering and talking and so on,

so forth.

And that's another thing I'd use.

Um, but having said that,

you know, the the whole the idea of getting the state servants,

public servants involved was not something I'd ever thought of before

we knew when we were setting up the whole thing.

We scratched our heads like nobody's business, wondering what we would do

and what we did eventually do was we said we would

wait until they wanted to learn about something in particular.

Um,

and they answered that question in spades because not

only did they want to learn something in particular,

they want to learn it from particular people,

which is way beyond anything we might think of, you know,

at the same time. I mean, I've written a book on democracy, and the gist of it is

the important role which the public servant has to play

in giving feedback from citizens because that it needs to be part of the way,

you know, good public service works,

so But I did.

I wasn't talking to the jurors about that at all,

but they can set up a way of doing this,

which for me was, uh, you know, just kind of amazing.

But, um,

but, I mean, I feel I I'm not a a um a

What do you call it? Um,

you know, I'm not a trained group facilitator. I've done work, and,

you know, I done done exercises during the year, and I picked up a lot,

and I figure with that,

Well, if you're looking for a kind of a, um,

amount of Yeah. What? What? How How would you rate

performance?

I would just simply say, after eight years,

they're all enthusiastic to be back in touch.

I think, Um, that's good enough. You know how with that? Well,

OK, um,

so, yeah, that's

there. There are the things that I would say, as I say, there was the,

you know, the the the Juries.

Um I mean, I was intimidated by the very idea of

jury selection, and probably far too much. So,

you know,

um, then also the fact of the,

you know, the the listening section,

the sessions,

you know, really, really did a bad job there, and I did a bad job there, you know?

Um,

yeah, I I I probably shouldn't bring this up because it we haven't flowed into it yet.

And I know how Haley wants to do these things, but,

uh, so we've met about four times.

Now,

the one thing you haven't brought up in all the

times we've met is your work with the church.

How did? And spirituality and all these other things. How did that impact this?

Well,

ok, um,

I before I I joined the Jesuits. I studied law

geologically from Trinity College, Dublin.

OK, then

I joined from there,

and, um then I I remember when I joined, I thought I'd be putting that behind me again.

I have nothing more to do with it.

good by,

um,

So then a few years later, I remember just the man in charge of the Irish church

saying, we need lawyers,

and he literally judge

when he said he

said it,

but I realised he wanted He wanted me to look into that. So

I don't know if, during your time in Dublin you would have come across an out

called the National College of Ireland.

Yes, I know the National College of Ireland,

but you know its background.

No, I do not. OK.

It was founded in 19 fifties

as, uh, the, um, Catholic Workers College.

And, um, it was, you know, to

Catholic social teaching social teacher. I know if you are familiar

with that with the church and so on.

Um and, um it went on developed. And then it was it started for just,

um, people of no education after, you know, the primary school.

Then, as the population became more educated,

it's now the faculty of industrial relations in the country.

In many respects,

um,

and I was teaching there as a student for the

and it also, you know, labour law, labour, Um,

uh, labour history and other

Posted By

Author

Georgia Davenport

Post date

21/03/2022