A very valuable report called The Vicious Circle of Social Exclusion and Crime: Ireland’s Disproportionate Punishment of the Poor was launched today by the Irish Penal Reform Trust with Community Platform. The details of the report are outlined below, but there was a couple of examples of the uneven nature of the Irish justice system [...]

The Dublin Council of Trades Unions’ March Against Austerity tomorrow (12 Noon from the Garden of Remembrance) is taking place against a rising European and global awareness of the power of the top 1 percent.  So what about our own home-grown 1 percent?  How much wealth do they own - wealth that translates into economic and [...]

Housing policy is one of the issues that goes to the heart of our current economic crisis. More than health or education it is an area of policy that successive governments left to the mercy of the market.
Some of the consequences are widely acknowledged, such as the massive property bubble and subsequent house price crash.
Unfortunately [...]

TASC launches major new report on ‘Eliminating Health Inequalities - A Matter of Life and Death‘(pdf)
Today TASC is launching its first report on health inequality, which was written by health policy analyist and journalist Sara Burke and Head of Policy at TASC Sinéad Pentony.
It’s an important piece for work for anyone who has followed the [...]

The Economic Costs of Health
The swingeing cuts in health funding that have been - and continue to be - implemented over the past couple of years have seriously debilitated the public health service. Its overall prognosis continues to decline as does the outlook for those of us obliged to avail of its failing facilities. Even [...]

If a graph can chart a thousand words, how many does two graphs chart? The math is not that simple - especially when you’re comparing Ireland’s comparative standing in both social justice and financial wealth.
In this first graph - from the Bertlelsmann Stiftung foundation - brings together OECD and related data to rank countries in [...]

Despite the expenditure of over US$2.5 trillion in official development assistance (ODA), billions of people continue to live in conditions of the direst poverty. Hunger and inequality stalk their lives as they struggle to survive. As Samir Amin wrote at the turn of the millennium:
“The polarization that is characteristic of modern globalization is phenomenal, without [...]

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 number of Ireland’s rich, measured as those having investable assets of $1 million or more, rose by over 10 % last year. To top it off ‘Ireland is perceived to be ahead of the game’, because apparently, our efforts to rein in the public finances have paid off for the Irish economy. This is [...]

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 [...]