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 [...]

4,132 IN PRISON CUSTODY IN IRELAND
The number of prisoners in custody in Irish prisons was 4,132 on Monday 1st Feb, 2010. This is an increase of 11% on the numbers of custody the same week in 2009. (These figures do not include those out on temporary release.) This acceleration in prison population growth, in an [...]

Poverty is set to increase in 2010 according to Social Justice Ireland (SJI). The anti-poverty group has this week published a detailed briefing paper saying that the numbers of children and ‘working-poor’ living in poverty will rise as a direct consequence of Budget 2010.
Figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that in 2008, 615,000 [...]

Responding to the publication of the Survey on Income and Living Conditions last week, Anna Visser Director of the European Anti-Poverty Network Ireland, welcomed the 2.1% fall in the at risk of poverty rate but warned of significant challenges ahead for 2010.
At risk of poverty rates were down for all age groups from 2007 but [...]

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better (London: Penguin, 2009). xvii + 331 pp.
This brilliant book demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt that economic equality is good for society. In doing so, it exposes the complete falsity of the dominant view that massive inequalities are a necessary [...]