The Irish health system is confronted by a range of challenges, both emerging and recurring. This collection provides a foundation for ongoing engagement with selected issues in contemporary Irish health contexts. It includes contributions from scholars and practitioners across a range of disciplines. The essays are theoretically informed and are grounded in the realities of the Irish health system, by drawing on contributors' contextual knowledge.
The focus of the collection is interdisciplinary and the essays are situated at the intersection between ethics, law, medicine and policy. It...

This book brings together research relating to the economics of disability in Ireland in order to provide evidence that can help improve disability policies, services and supports. In doing so, it addresses a number of key questions of relevance to the economic circumstances of people with disabilities, with particular emphasis on the relationship between disability and social inclusion, poverty, the labour market, living standards and public policy. Importantly, it also incorporates a life cycle perspective on disability, considering issues of specific relevance to children, working-age...

This book re-visits and re-thinks some recent defining events in Irish society. Some of these are high profile and occupy a prominent place in public consciousness, such as the announcement of the banking guarantee and the publication of the Ryan report into clerical child abuse, while others are 'fringe' events which attracted less attention, such as the launch of Indymedia.ie, or were widely discussed in popular culture, like the publication of Donal Og Cusack's autobiography or the opening of Dundrum Town Centre. The book critically explores issues of equality, belonging and rights as they...

This is the first definitive examination of the practice of corporate regulation and enforcement from the foundation of the Irish State to the present day. Traditionally, corporate wrongdoing was often criminalised using conventional criminal justice methods and the ordinary police were often charged with the responsibility of enforcing the law. Since the 1990s, however, the conventional crime monopoly on corporate deviancy has become fragmented because a variety of specialist, interdisciplinary agencies with enhanced powers now address corporate wrongdoing. The exclusive dominance of...

This book examines the lived housing experiences of recently arrived migrants living in inner city, town and small town locations in Ireland. Building on the concept of 'housing careers', this book provides the first comprehensive analysis of migrants' 'housing pathways'.
The housing pathways approach has not been not applied comprehensively in the Irish or international contexts and is largely absent from discourses surrounding the lived housing experiences of migrants. Thus, this book addresses areas of policy analysis that are underdeveloped, notably in terms of the perceptions of...

This book re-visits and re-thinks some recent defining events in Irish society. Some of these are high profile and occupy a prominent place in public consciousness, such as the announcement of the banking guarantee and the publication of the Ryan report into clerical child abuse, while others are 'fringe' events which attracted less attention, such as the launch of Indymedia.ie, or were widely discussed in popular culture, like the publication of Donal Og Cusack's autobiography or the opening of Dundrum Town Centre. The book critically explores issues of equality, belonging and rights as they...

The introduction of FOI in Ireland was a watershed moment in Irish democracy. It gave citizens a right to know, and abolished eighty years of official secrecy that had existed since the foundation of the State. As the new 2014 FOI Act is extended to the gardai and the Central Bank for the first time, this book critically examines the important contribution the legislation has made to the opening up of Irish democracy and society.
The book includes important contributions from the Ombudsman and Information Commissioner Peter Tyndall, former minister Eithne FitzGerald and RTE journalist...

Recent decades have witnessed major changes in gender roles and family patterns, as well as a falling birth rate in Ireland and the rest of Europe. While the traditional family is now being replaced in many cases by new family forms, we do not know the reasons why people are making the choices they are and whether or not these choices are leading to greater well-being. While demographic research has attempted to explain the new trends in family formation and fertility, there has been little research on people's attitudes to family formation and having children. This book presents the results...