Sinead Pentony: “The problem is unemployment - not the unemployed”.
Responding to reports that those receiving unemployment assistance could be coerced into taking up “social employment” positions through the threat of losing income supports, TASC Head of Policy Sinead Pentony said today making such schemes mandatory was unnecessary and would simply serve to stigmatise participants.

6 per cent of the those who took part in the 2010 Solidarity Factor, incorporating the results of TASC’s 2010 Equality Survey favour raising minimum wage, 29 per cent favour establishing maximum wage and 49 per cent favour combination of both approaches.
Commenting on the findings the equality think-tank’s Director, Paula Clancy, said today:
“There is now [...]

Over 130 Irish creative and performing artists sign pledge to Boycott Israel
The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) ‘Irish artists’ pledge to boycott Israel’ will be launched with a musical performance in Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, Dublin 2, this Thursday 12th August at 1pm featuring Eoin Dillon (Kíla), Treasa Ni Cheannabhain and Naisrín Elsafty.
The IPSC [...]

Yesterday afternoon TASC presented ‘The Minimum Wage‘ to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment. During the presentation TASC Director Paula Clancy argued that any moves to reduce the minimum wage or JLC rates would represent what she termed a “double strike against economic recovery”.
This presentation follows on from TASCs ‘Square Deal? The [...]

There is a new Think Piece on the TASC website co-authored by one of our regular contributors, Justin Frewen.
Called The Socio-Economic Realities of Mental Health, by Justin and co-author Dr. Anna Datta, the paper can be downloaded from the TASC site here.
“An ever-growing body of research indicates that the failure to adequately tackle mental health [...]

Incomes of the low paid must be protected
Speaking in response to the ESRI Quarterly Economic Commentary, Anne Costello of the Community Platform stated, ‘we agree with broadening the tax base but strongly reject suggestions that this should mean bringing the low paid into the income tax net.’
Ms Costello went on to state, ‘the Community Platform [...]

‘The injustice of time - rendered obsolete.’

Rain falls on the snow. The Contagion has taken hold. Ghosts from the old Dead Republic are emerging everywhere as the day of judgement approaches.
On Black Tuesday a guilt ridden political functionary runs from his job burying bodies in the city. He is tortured by voices of reproach as [...]

Performance Poetry goes Live, Wild and Nationwide with Dave Lordan and Elaine Feeney
Writers and performers Dave Lordan and Elaine Feeney are to tour their much anticipated new books with their Where’s the Sacrifice? tour over the summer months.
Lordan and Feeney are both award winning writers and stars of Ireland’s exploding live poetry and cabaret scene.
Lordan’s [...]

On the 17th of June last Professor Kathleen Lynch, Professor of Equality Studies at the School of Social Justice at UCD, gave the 2010 TASC Annual Lecture at the Royal Irish Academy. It was called From a Neo-Liberal to an Egalitarian State: Imagining a different Future and it provides not only an excellent analysis of [...]

New-look An Phoblacht on sale now.
With more pages, more photos and more colour, the 32-page July issue includes…
Ballymurphy Massacre, 1971 - Prelude to Bloody Sunday?
The Parachute Regiment shot dead 11 people over 3 days in west Belfast in the wake of internment in 1971 and just months before being deployed in Derry

The so-called ‘dissidents’
Belfast activist [...]