Ireland's political and cultural magazine
2016 marks another anniversary, the 20th anniversary of a ‘Strategy for Equality’. This was the report of the Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities. Their task was to establish what life was like for people with disabilities in Ireland and to prepare a roadmap to equality for people with disabilities. Before deciding on […]
Government plans to introduce “commissioning” as the means to deliver social, human and community-based services now threaten both the Community and Voluntary Sector and the effective delivery of essential social and community-based services. The Departments of Health, of Children and Youth Affairs, and of Environment, Community and Local Government are now moving to a commissioning model […]
The next Programme for Government must make choices in favour of those who have the least and have been hit the hardest by austerity. This requires not just a commitment to guaranteeing the rights and welfare of the most vulnerable in society, but also a focus on the values needed in building a strong and cohesive […]
The new Minister for Social Protection will face a number of significant challenges. She has to deal comprehensively with the damage of the immediate past, while expediting long overdue reforms, and at the same time stay on top of new welfare challenges associated with changing forms of family, employment patterns, demographic trends: all betrayed by pervasive […]
The option of increasing tax on diesel to cut dangerous emissions was discarded by the outgoing government amid concerns of upsetting road hauliers and increasing the cost of doing business in Ireland. A second possibility of raising carbon tax on solid fuel was also ignored by then Minister of Finance Michael Noonan because of fears […]
An investigation by BBC’s ‘Spotlight’ programme broadcase on, 29th February, into the sale of NAMA’s huge property portfolio in Northern Ireland has revived an embarrassing issue for the outgoing government. Village readers will recall how distressed commercial and residential properties, previously valued at £4.5 billion, were sold to US vulture fund Cerberus, for just £1.2 […]
LAUNDERING HISTORY Deep in the heartland of Donnybrook, hidden in a crescent behind the fire station, surrounded by houses and leafiness there sits, intact, a building which embodied part of our cruel social history. Known locally as the Donnybrook laundry, but more widely known in subcultures and State reports as the Magdalene laundry of the […]