- Read more: Decision-making regarding transitions to residential care for people with intellectual disabilities
People with intellectual disabilities are living longer often with ageing family caregivers. As needs increase and community services remain limited, families face pressure that can lead to emergency residential placements. This policy brief examines the experiences of people with intellectual disabilities and their family caregivers as they seek residential care in Ireland and makes policy…
- Read more: What gets measured gets funded: are standard evaluation frameworks failing community development work in Ireland?
When community development work struggles to evidence impact, the problem often lies not with the work itself, but with evaluation frameworks designed to measure the wrong things. Through the lens of a long-standing community health project with Travellers, this paper argues for a fundamental shift: recognising that relationships are not a soft feature of this…
- Read more: The Role of Ireland’s Sustainable Energy Communities in the Just Transition
This community-based research explores the role of Sustainable Energy Communities (SECs) in Ireland, revealing the meaningful social impacts they are creating in their localities, despite acute policy and financial challenges. This paper concludes with policy recommendations to harness the full capacity of community energy in Ireland and advance a more just energy transition
- Read more: How does the European Green Deal Enhance Social and Economic Inclusiveness?
This paper explores the European Union’s Green Deal (EGD) growth strategy, social market economy, and climate resilient implementation, drawing on survey data examining the governance and implementation of the EGD across 27 EU Member States. The author examines how Ireland’s deliberative democracy experience could provide essential food for thought to successfully implement EU Green Deal…
- Read more: Online Safety Policy in Ireland: A Public Health Perspective
Are social media bans the answer? This article explores a public health approach to online safety combining effective regulation, safer platforms, digital skills, community action and a focus on inequality.
- Read more: Strengthening Ireland’s Response to Homelessness: The Case for Reviewing Ireland’s National Definition of Homelessness
This policy brief is informed by evidence from the Problem Phase Living Lab sessions undertaken in Ireland as part of the COMHOM project, an EU-funded initiative examining responses to homelessness. Evidence gathered from frontline service providers identifies significant gaps in the recognition and measurement of hidden homelessness within current policy and data collection systems. The…
- Read more: Strengthening Ireland’s Response to Homelessness: The Case for Improving Digital Integration and Data Coordination in Ireland
This policy brief argues that strengthening homelessness responses in Ireland requires a more integrated and coordinated digital infrastructure, supported by standardised approaches to data collection, monitoring and evaluation. A unified and interoperable system would enhance the accuracy and completeness of homelessness data, improve service coordination, and support more effective policy development.
- Read more: Addressing Adolescent Mental Health in Ireland
This policy brief presents findings from surveys of more than 20,000 adolescents across Ireland that tracked changes in mental health between 2018 and 2023. Policy implications are discussed for the education and health sectors
- Read more: Problem Solving in Irish Mathematics Classrooms: Supporting teachers to implement curriculum reform
This paper considers why mathematics curriculum reforms have not translated into changes in classroom practice in Ireland and highlights the systemic barriers teachers face when attempting to incorporate problem solving into their classrooms. We argue for the provision of high-quality, sustained professional development alongside purposefully designed educative curriculum materials (ECMs) to support teachers with enacting…
- Read more: Ireland’s Childcare Problem: What We Have, and What Denmark Does Differently
This paper argues that Ireland’s recent childcare fee cuts, while helpful to many parents, are masking the real problem. Ireland still has a shortage of childcare places and an underpaid workforce that subsidies alone can’t fix. This paper uses Denmark’s guaranteed-place, publicly- funded model as a benchmark to show an alternative approach to childcare.
