Neighbourhood of strangers: AirBNB and the commodification of housing
Figures published by the Department of Housing this month indicate that the number of homeless people in Ireland has reached the 10,000 mark. Responding to the escalating figures, Minister for Housing Eoghan Murphy said that current housing policies ‘were working’, but that the nature of the housing crisis meant it could never be ‘turn[ed] around...
Not only the Rich: A Case for Fees
The evolving demands of the labour market, coupled with a policy push toward the creation of a ‘Knowledge Economy’, has led to the increasing expectation and prerequisite of a third level degree in the Irish jobs market. With the majority of Irish students pursuing a third level education on completion of second level, second level...
The Issues of General Election 2016: Healthcare
The healthcare system is an inefficient, two-tiered mishmash of public and private providers and clients, and is in urgent need of drastic change. This much all political parties are in general agreement on. However, approaches to resolving the failings and inefficiencies of the current system vary widely, from the private-provision orientated philosophies of Renua, to the...
The Issues of General Election 2016: Housing
Five years after the 31st Dáil was elected on the backlash of the property crash, housing remains one of the most contentious issues in the run up to General Election 2016. Different housing approaches have been taken over the course of the state’s existence, with each holding specific benefits and downsides to its social stakeholders....
‘Why should surfers be fed?’ Unconditional Basic Income in Ireland
With a General Election imminent, testing social issues are sure to be voiced readily over the coming months in both party manifestos and general public discourse. One topic that will certainly take centre stage in the upcoming debates is the issue of social deprivation and how to best combat economic poverty in a state still recovering...
Individualistic Homelessness: Housing the roofless
While decriminalising drug possession is a simplistic and ultimately self-defeating approach (a topic to be addressed in a future article), it must also be realised that incarceration is not a suitable response to dealing with social problems such as narcotic abuse, and will ultimately only succeed in increasing rooflessness, itself a gateway to narcotic use....
Curing the Health System: UHI in Ireland
The Irish healthcare system cannot accurately be described as being either public or private in nature, but rather a mesh of public and private, non-profit and for-profit institutions. The inefficiencies of the current hybrid system are painfully evident, while the inequality of service provision, typified in the current layout where hospital consultants are paid a...
Social Costs of Direct Provision
A clear majority of Irish voters approve of the current Direct Provision policy towards asylum seekers [1]. Support for the policy is strong across all social classes, but is especially popular among DE voters, and, surprisingly, among young voters (18 to 34). Given such broad popular support for the current arrangement, it is unlikely that any change...
Water: Economics and Equitability
The economics of water is about trying to understand water scarcity and the values of water, as well as how to ensure that our broadly defined needs are understood, that costs and benefits of choices are clear and that the impacts of alternative pricing schedules are clarified (Joyce and Convery, 2009, p. 377). Implying that water...
Housing: replacing the wobbly pillar
The recent election of Joan Burton as the 11th leader of the Labour party brings hope to its members of a change in the fortunes of their party which faced an electoral nightmare in the local and European elections. But comments made by Burton that ‘a Labour priority in the remainder of this Government’s term would...
Stagnation in Northern Ireland requires new interventions
It seems as if inter-ethnic, territorial and sectarian tensions have become a global epidemic in recent times. Israeli-Palestinian relations are on a knife-edge, the conflicts in Nigeria and Central African Republic have not been resolved, and there is a feeling that Ukraine is still very much an ongoing affair. And then there is Northern Ireland. While violence...
