Book Review:The Equality Illusion: The Truth About Men and Women Today by Kat Banyard, Faber & Faber (2010)
28-year-old British activist Kat Banyard opens her polemic The Equality Illusion with a quote simply beyond satire from Sir Stuart Rose, Chairman of Marks and Spencer:
‘…there really are no glass ceilings despite the fact that some of you [...]

Social Justice Ireland has produced a well-argued proposal for refundable tax credits - a long-standing demand to make the tax system more equitable. In essence, as SJI describes it:
‘A refundable tax credit is one where, in the event that the income of an individual is insufficient to use up all of his or her tax [...]

The Irish Penal Reform Trust, Ireland’s leading voice for penal reform, will today host an Open Public Forum, entitled Exploding Prisoner Numbers – Causes, Effects and Solutions. The event, which is chaired by the Inspector Prisons, Judge Michael Reilly, will outline the causes of rocketing prison numbers in Ireland, and identify practical solutions to the [...]

Last night the number of prisoners in custody in Mountjoy Prison reached 691, which is 151 more than the maximum safe custody limit of 540 recommended by the Inspector of Prisons in 2009. Prisoners were accommodated in the same beds in the basement of Mountjoy, sleeping head to foot. The Irish Penal Reform Trust, who [...]

I’m reposting this in light of the resignation of Kathleen McMahon as governor of the Dóchas Centre and her highly critical comments about the Irish Prison Service in her letter of resignation. In today’s Irish Times report on her resignation it mentions a chilling aspect, about how the Irish prison service is developing policy based [...]

The recent tragic killing of Toyosi Shittabey behooves us all to critically reflect upon, and engage in national dialogue about, the true scale and nature of racism in Irish society today. The pervasiveness of racism in Irish society is a reality that a number of young people in the Tyrellstown area—where Toyosi was killed—have eloquently [...]

Every year one of Ireland’s leading anti poverty groups, Social Justice Ireland (formerly known as CORI Justice) produces a social and economic review.
This detailed report provides both a critique of government policy in the previous year and a set of alternatives aimed at producing a more equal society.
This years report is entitled, An Agenda for [...]

Despite the expenditure of billions of dollars on development aid and the launch of high-profile initiatives such as the Millennium Development Goals, the blight of hunger has not been defeated. If anything, its grip on hundreds of millions of people is as tight as ever.
In 2000, some 790 million people in the southern hemisphere were [...]

“You need to find a way to sell your ideas to people. Make them want to buy into them.”
That was the advice given to me in a little Belfast coffee-shop months ago by a lady whose area of expertise is working with troubled youth. Promoting social justice issues for her is akin to selling brand [...]

…it’s no life at all. We just live by the day… We are grateful for the food, for the accommodation, most for our children going to school… but people are wasting in the name of the asylum process…” (Anonymous Resident Mosney camp, Seaview documentary)
Enveloped in a global recession and the consequences of the disastrous economic [...]