Let’s start with the rape, buggery, abuse and trauma that children suffer that we do so little about. By Vincent Browne.
The arresting black and white poster, with the photograph of a charming child, accompanied by the slogan “Every Child Matters”, is one of the falsehoods perpetrated by the Government parties urging support for the children’s rights referendum.
That the family featured in an Irish Times article by Kathy Sheridan last week is going through seriously difficult times is, unfortunately, becoming ever more ordinary for hundreds of thousands of households. So why is Eilis O’Hanlon having such a go at them in the Sunday Independent? By Michael Taft.
The story of St Patrick's Institution is one which we, as a nation, should be horrified to hear in in 2012. By Yvonne Daly.
Rather than just wishing unemployment would go away, we should use the current crisis to rethink employment and unemployment completely. By Tom Boland.
Today, on International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, the Equality Budgeting Campaign has called on the Government to introduce measures “to put a halt to the growing inequality and poverty seen in Ireland since the beginning of the economic crisis”. The campaign coalition, which includes lone parent groups, disability organisations, migrant organisations, trade unions and women’s groups, among others, says that it is possible for the Government to reverse the current trend toward increased hardship for the poorest people living in Ireland.
That we can’t, that we don’t, ensure that nobody in our society goes without food says something about the kind of society that is being created for us. By Michael Taft.
While in Iceland the left-leaning Icelandic government chose to focus the impact of the adjustments necessitated by the crisis on the richest sectors of Icelandic society, in Ireland the poorest have been made to bear the brunt. By Vincent Browne.
Minister for Health James Reilly’s addition of two towns in his own constituency – Balbriggan and Swords – to a list of primary care centres is still causing controversy, two weeks after this story broke. Despite rounds of questioning in the Dáil and long media outings by Minister Reilly, we are no clearer now on how they got on the list and what criteria were used to compile the list. By Sara Burke.
There is a government commitment to develop primary care centres (PCCs). There are three ways of funding those centres –
We are being asked to vote on a defective constitutional proposal that extends weak protection to our children from abuse and neglect. By Vincent Browne.
There is a straightforward question to be asked about the proposed constitutional amendment concerning children. It is: why does it not include the oft-quoted and approved aspiration of the 1916 Proclamation: “cherishing all the children of the nation equally”?
Today sees the launch of a campaign by Anti-Deportation Ireland against the system of direct provision and the practice of deportation. Anti-Deportation Ireland (ADI) is a national network of activists, asylum seekers, refugees, community workers, trade unionists, and academics who have come together to campaign against forced deportation in Ireland, and for the abolition of the direct provision system.