Catherine Devitt Introduction It’s going to impact the rest of my life; the kinds of decisions I can make, the kind of world can live in. It’s going to augment other social problems which we already have. Our lives are not going to look like our parents’ lives, because of climate change.1 The young adults… Read more »

James Doorley Introduction On the day of his election as An Taoiseach (June 14th 2017), Leo Varadkar T.D. spoke about creating a ‘republic of opportunity’.1 Although an admirable vision for the country, the evidence suggests that Irish society has a long way to go to make such noble ambitions a reality, particularly for unemployed young… Read more »

Dr. Tony Bates Introduction When ‘Deirdre’ arrived to see me with her mother, my first impression was of a young woman with a warm smile and not a problem in the world. She was twenty-three years old, already the mother of two. As she checked out my office, I wondered if she was happy to… Read more »

Kevin O’Higgins SJ Introduction A lifetime of working with young adults has left me in no doubt that inequalities associated with the circumstances of our birth are more than likely to lead to successive waves of inequality that may accompany us throughout the remainder of our lives. This is true whether we are born into… Read more »

The Better Outcomes, Brighter Futures Report (2014-2020) sets out a realistic vision for the future of children and young people in Ireland. This vision is for ‘Ireland to be one of the best small countries in the world in which to grow up and raise a family, and where the rights of all children and… Read more »

Jerome Connolly Introduction There is in the Sherlock Holmes canon a particular and often-quoted phrase which comes to mind when scrutinising the housing policies of successive Irish governments over the last two decades. The phrase refers to an incident concerning a dog guarding stables from which a racehorse had been stolen during the night. The… Read more »

Peter McVerry SJ, Eoin Carroll and Margaret Burns Homelessness The Continuing Rise in Homelessness The most disturbing aspect of the current housing crisis is, of course, the extent to which individuals and families are experiencing homelessness. While homelessness has been rising since at least 2013 there has been a particularly marked increase since 2015. As… Read more »

Margaret Burns, P.J. Drudy, Rory Hearne and Peter McVerry SJ Introduction Providing affordable, quality and accessible housing for our people is a priority … The actions of the New Partnership Government will work to end the housing shortage and homelessness. (Programme for Government, May 2016) Against a background of deepening public concern about the increasing… Read more »

When Ireland became an independent State it inherited some appallingly bad housing conditions. This was most notoriously the case in the severely deprived areas of inner-city Dublin, but inadequate and overcrowded housing which lacked basic facilities was also prevalent in towns and villages and rural areas around the country. Over the following seven decades, significant… Read more »

Introduction The Report, Justice in the Global Economy, is a call to action. Whilst it combines the clarity and scholarship of an academic paper, its underlying tone conveys urgency. The Report calls on all of us in Jesuit works to wake up to the realities that humankind is facing and asks that as individuals, organisations,… Read more »