Prejudice against Travellers seems like the last acceptable form of bigotry, and excuses for it are rife. Despite the progress we have made in recent decades in how we perceive and treat members of minority groups, and our rightful abhorrence of racism, it is still acceptable in most company to refer to the ‘problems’ with this group and how it is really their own fault that we exclude them from our settled mainstream society.

A decision on parole for an applicant is to take into account that the parole applicant “has been rehabilitated and would, upon being released, be capable of reintegrating into society.”[13] However, the 2019 Act does not contain a definition of rehabilitation, or how it is to be measured, so both parole applicants and Parole Board members may be in the dark as to the basis on which decisions are to be made in terms of rehabilitation, despite the several other factors on which their decision is made being based in law. The Act creates legal uncertainty about rehabilitation by omitting to define it.

When compared to the rest of Europe, Ireland is rated as one of the worst countries for ecological integrity with our diminished diversity of larger fauna and the dominance of land use dedicated to grazing further reducing the complexity and diversity of our landscape. Whatever way we look at it, the state of Ireland’s biodiversity leaves a lot to be desired. But why should we care?

How did a Presbyterian from Ballymena, the Bible Belt of Northern Ireland, end up in a private audience with the Pope? It is quite a journey. It is my journey. I am so thankful for that journey, everywhere God has led me, everything God has taught me, all that I have experienced, got wrong, confessed and, like that clerical collar, made right again. I am most surprised and privileged at reaching this particular destination on my journey.

Most people identify vacancy and dereliction based on how something looks – whether it is run down, in poor condition, or unoccupied. While this is undoubtedly a quick way of spotting buildings and sites in need of attention, it excludes properties that might be vacant or derelict but don’t match these subjective aesthetic registers – perhaps not visible from street level or where exteriors are maintained. In some cases, a neighbour might mow the lawn of an adjacent vacant home to avoid it becoming an eyesore. Likewise, vacant units in apartment buildings can be especially difficult for anyone assessing vacancy from the street level.

“Advise, assist and befriend” was first introduced into the Irish probation lexicon under the Probation of Offenders Act 1907 which was enacted prior to Ireland’s independence from Britain. Section 4 of the Act provides that the probation officer must ensure that the person under supervision abides by the terms of their order and in doing so is required to “advise, assist and befriend” them. 

I have suggested that rehabilitation is a noble pursuit because it is a creative act and requires vision and imagination. But these insightful essays, taken as a whole illustrate that rehabilitation is an act of hope.

Over the last twenty years, there has been a remarkable and well-documented collapse of children’s engagement with nature – nearly as fast as the collapse of habitats and environmental resources in the natural world itself.

Co-operatives in the care industry are currently not the norm in Ireland and suffer from their niche position. For the potential of elder care co-operatives to be fulfilled a number of supports and initiatives would need to be implemented.[35] These include support from other co-operatives, increased awareness of co-operatives among care beneficiaries and care sector providers and greater support from the State.

The determined efforts and commitment of Prison Chaplains in the difficult working environment of prisons is clearly evident. While the support of the Irish Prison Service for chaplaincy is regularly acknowledged, the annual reports also highlight shortcomings within the prison system and the wider criminal justice system. 

At present there are few options for disabled people to acquire the necessary supports to live independently. This is having a significant impact on disabled people and their families. Disabled people are aging in the family home with their parents. There is a denial of a right to live independently, coupled with an onus on families to provide care when they are aging.

Ireland spends just 0.2% of its GDP on childcare each year, investing the smallest percentage of its GDP in early years of any developed country, and with the greatest reliance on private services. The average spend across Europe is four times as high. When it comes to old age spending, Ireland also sits at the bottom of the league table at 3.4%.

Reading these essays, the threads that interconnect the different elements of care in our society are clear. When you lack care for one aspect of existence it is easy to imagine this seeping into all other areas.

Several of the women I speak to tell me they were in Direct Provision for more than five years. They have had children in that time, children who still do not know anything other than sharing just one room with their family in an overcrowded centre full of people. When you have lived in an institution for a long period of time, the constraints can start to feel like safety. One woman tells me that she has had her papers for a couple of months and is preparing for the move out of the centre, but her relief at leaving is tinged with trepidation. At least in the centre, she says, there are always others to turn to, but “nobody looks out for you outside.”

Global threats to human security and safety require a global response. On 17 December 2018, the UN General Assembly affirmed the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR).[16] The main objectives of the GCR are to: ease pressures on countries that welcome and host refugees; build self-reliance of refugees; expand access to resettlement in third countries; and support conditions in countries of origin for safe return. Undoubtedly, the GCR has admirable goals and a vision to effect positive change for refugees and forcibly displaced persons worldwide. However, the challenge is to ensure the high-level commitments translate into actions that address the needs on the ground and impact positively on the lives of forced migrants and their families.

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That is the way we should be thinking about the planetary crisis, in terms of new opportunities for rethinking the good life, rethinking human relationships with each other, rethinking human relationships with the earth, and so on at this time. Contrast this to the dominant public discussion of this issue in terms of framing it (and therefore delimiting it) to a continuation of business as usual. The effect of this is to maintain capitalism, consumerism, and our lifestyles as they are now, but perhaps drawing on renewable energy to do so.

Humans, it seems, cannot inhabit our status of insider without framing it against outsiders. This is one of the reasons why we should be sceptical of easy claims grounded in concepts like inclusion and tolerance – not because those are not virtuous things to achieve – but because if we believe we arrive at them without difficulty we are deluded.

As the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has recorded, between 1990 and 2010 there was a fairly consistent level of global forced displacement of between 30-50 million people per annum. However, the past 10 years have seen a significant increase in all forms of forced displacement, defined by UNHCR as displacement resulting from “persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations or events seriously disturbing public order.”

Wars, inter-state conflicts and climate breakdown result in the mass movement of peoples. According to the World Economic Forum, wars, violence or persecution forced 11 million people to flee their homes throughout 2019, mostly from low or middle-income countries, nearly double the figure for 2010 and creating a global population of almost 80 million displaced. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported that more than one per cent of humanity, that is one out of every 96 people in the world, was displaced in 2020, with more and more unable to return home.

The first Minister for Agriculture, Patrick Hogan, described the economic policy of the nascent State as one of “helping the farmer who helped himself and letting the rest go to the devil.”[5] By 1926, agriculture accounted for 32 per cent of GDP and 54 per cent of workers were employed on farms or in the food processing industry.[6] This, then, is the context in which we might consider environmental policy at the founding of the State and in subsequent decades.

Irish women challenged the patriarchal nature of Irish society and traditional Church teaching on birth control and on the natural role of woman as mother and home-maker. Inglis contends that the Irish mother played a vital role in the development and transmission of Irish Catholicism from generation to generation. Once women were able to access alternative sources of power through the workplace and public life, a key pillar of the Church’s ideological control was removed.

The distinction of the Irish pastoral penal policy was, first, the prisoner was viewed not as a defective person with skewed attitude and amoral values. Instead, they were understood as someone who most likely had fallen on hard times, crime was seen as a result of poverty and a lack of opportunity, which was felt to be endemic in Ireland. There was empathy with the prisoner.

Housing ownership in Ireland has bestowed an enduring set of values. But if there is any lesson from 100 years of Irish housing it is that housing policy can diminish, or it can reinforce, social and economic inequality.

  2021 marks the centenary of the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. It is an apt moment to take stock of the history of policies pursued in the State since then, focusing particularly on the areas that comprise the core of our work in the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice. We begin with a… Read more »