Marc Chagall's Return of the Prodigal

Ignorance Informs Intolerance

Very few events during the Taoiseach’s present term will be as fundamentally happy as the safe return of Emily Hand to her family. The Tánaiste’s statement went basically unnoticed. Indeed, the Taoiseach’s full statement has also mostly been bypassed. What has been noted – with fury by many on social media and with rancour by… Read more »

High Expectations: Loss and Damage at COP28

What is loss and damage and why is it important? The causes and impacts of climate change are widely accepted. We know that more carbon pollution in the atmosphere, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels releasing carbon dioxide, leads to an overall increase in global temperatures. This causes a wide variety of impacts including… Read more »

Image of a house being built. Josh Olalde is the photographer: https://www.instagram.com/josh_olalde

Homelessness Should Still Shock You

This week the housing charity Threshold published its 2022 annual report. I was struck, reading it, that the numbers involved in their work were terrifyingly large. Over 50,000 people needed to reach out to the charity in an effort to avoid homelessness. It was a stark reminder of how the homelessness crisis that Ireland has… Read more »

Active transport

The Unequal Consequences of Prioritising Cars

Stop de Kindermoord ‘Stop de Kindermoord’, or ‘Stop the Child Murder’ was a road safety campaign in the Netherlands during the 1970s. It precipitated the widespread installation of active transport infrastructure for which the Netherlands is now famous. This campaign was led by parents who feared for the safety of their kids, and communities who… Read more »

COP28@Home – Together for Climate Justice

“If we are confident in the capacity of human beings to transcend their petty interests and to think in bigger terms, we can keep hoping that COP28 will allow for a decisive acceleration of energy transition, with effective commitments subject to ongoing monitoring. This Conference can represent a change of direction, showing that everything done… Read more »

Prisoners’ Sunday – Reflections on a New Prison

The new prison testifies to a societal failure … [w]e have an obligation to provide something better than a brighter prison.

Ecological conversion – how do we need to change?

The urgency in Francis’ communication to us makes it clear that ecological action cannot wait until it feels comfortable – we do not have time to allow his message to transition slowly from head to heart to hands but we must consider how the action of our hands can help us understand the crisis both intellectually and emotionally

Budget 2024 and Traveller-Specific Accommodation

Irish Travellers are overrepresented in homelessness services and Traveller families can be left in emergency accommodation for years, which adds another level of trauma to the institutional abuse they have endured for decades. In a group whose suicide rates are several times that of the settled community, the impact of every factor which impacts upon mental health must be lessened, making the provision of secure, appropriate housing for Travellers a matter of urgency. 

Laudate Deum Summary

Laudate Deum is clearly written to inspire the delegates who will attend the COP28 meetings in Dubai in December. Francis carefully lays out how previous COPs concluded with high hopes that have never quite delivered. The reader can almost hear his frustration at how every year the Great and the Good gather and discuss these critical issues and every year they disappoint.

How to solve the housing crisis in two easy steps… and why it won’t happen

Maybe the reason the Kenny Report is sitting on a shelf gathering dust is that governments do not want to reduce the cost of housing.  Their core voters are home owners who will be horrified at the thought that the value of their house would be reduced, even minimally. But unless they are planning to sell the house, that is a purely paper reduction.