- 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.
- Read more: Reframing Public Services in Ireland as a Relational Practice
This paper makes the case for reframing public services in Ireland as Relational Public Services (RPS) that take a Human Learning Systems Approach (HLS), which describes a way of organising viable services built around relationships and collective learning, as distinct from transactions, targets and standardised processes.
- Read more: Public support for welfare and redistributive policies in Ireland
The ESRI has published a report “Public support for welfare and redistributive policies in Ireland. This study was conducted in partnership with Community Foundation Ireland.
- Read more: Guidelines for the Responsible use of Artificial Intelligence in the Public Service
The Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform has published: ‘Guidelines for the Responsible use of Artificial Intelligence in the Public Service’. The guidelines contain examples of how AI is already being used across public services, including: The Guidelines are available to download here.
- Read more: On a plane with Nicolas Schmit, the lead-candidate of the European Socialists in the coming EU elections
Sunday morning. 7 April. Nicolas Schmit, the EU Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights and Spitzenkandidat of the European Socialist for the coming EU elections and I bump into each other on board a morning flight to Charleroi. Schmit is returning from an election campaign rally in Romania. I am on the way to a European…
- Read more: How We Track Public Spending
A significant part of the Constitution of Ireland sets out how public money is to be managed. Article 10 is about the state’s ownership of natural resources. Article 11 sets up the central fund for state revenue. Article 17 gives the Dáil the imperative to consider the estimates of receipts and expenditure of the state…
- Read more: Public Spending and the Choices Facing the Next Government
Ireland has six political parties that might plausibly form part of a government, and none of them has an agenda to raise taxes to any significant degree. Most of them probably agree with the plan to slowly raise social insurance (the rate is going up by 0.1 percentage points in October 2024) and those leaning…
- Read more: An Introduction to Ireland’s Public Spending Explained 2024
The last time Ireland intensively scrutinised public spending was when the economy had collapsed in 2008. The scale of the national debt and loss of tax revenue at the time threatened the financial ruin of the state. That was not the best environment in which to consider where the state spends money and what we…
- Read more: Social Justice Matters Policy Brief – Other Public Services
Social Justice Ireland have recently released a policy brief: “Social Justice Matters Policy Brief – Other Public Services”. The paper is available HERE.
