Socioeconomy

Sustainable Capital Spending will support investment and recovery

Monday, 3 August 2020

One of the objectives of Budget 2021 must be to support demand through Government capital expenditure. In order to support investment and recovery, it is important that this capital spending is sustainable.

Increase in Financial Distress likely post-COVID-19

Friday, 3 July 2020

Over one million people were in receipt of COVID-19-related income supports as of May this year. 584,641 were in receipt of the Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) and 473,500 people had availed of the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme (TWSS). These numbers have been decreasing as the economy slowly starts to open again, those who needed to avail of loan repayment breaks and rent freezes will face likely financial distress.

Programme for Government misses opportunity for pension reform

Wednesday, 1 July 2020

The current State Pension system deprives many people who have spent their lives in caring roles of financial security in their old age. These are people society should be rewarding, not penalising. With the new Programme for Government committing to the proposed Auto Enrolment Plan, an opportunity to increase the fairness of the Irish pension system is being missed, and at a substantial financial cost.

What could a new National Index of Progress look like?

Wednesday, 24 June 2020

The commitment to using wellbeing indicators alongside economic indicators in the Programme for Government is welcome. Creating a sustainable Ireland requires the adoption of new indicators to measure progress. To reflect this, the wellbeing indicators that the new Government has committed to developing must include new indicators measuring both wellbeing and sustainability in society, to be used alongside measures of national income like GDP, GNP and GNI.

Reaction to draft Programme for Government

Thursday, 18 June 2020

A full analysis of the draft Programme for Government will be published in due course. In the meantime, our initial response highlights 10 positives contained within the PfG and 10 causes for concern. We go on to list other areas contained in the document on which Social Justice Ireland had advocated and campaigned.

A Rising Tide Failing to Lift all Boats - European Research Series

Monday, 15 June 2020

‘A Rising Tide Failing to Lift All Boats’ is the latest publication in Social Justice Ireland’s European Research Series. This report analyses performance in areas such as poverty and inequality, employment, access to key public services and taxation. The report also points to key policy proposals and alternatives for discussion. These include the right to sufficient income, meaningful work and access to essential quality services. The policy proposals explore how these areas might be delivered upon in a changing world.

Measuring the socio-economic impact of Government policies

Wednesday, 10 June 2020

An open and transparent policy evaluation process, with meaningful engagement from all stakeholders, would ensure that we learn from our successes and from our mistakes. Such a process would ensure that we evaluate both and offer a framework to take our policy successes and replicate them across Government. Social Justice Ireland believes strongly in the importance of developing a rights-based approach to social, economic, and cultural policy. A key policy measure to deliver an open and transparent policy evaluation process is to measure the socio-economic impact of each budget. This should be a statutory responsibility for Government.

Integrating sustainable development into economic policy

Monday, 1 June 2020

A vibrant economy is most important if Ireland is to produce a fairer future for all. To secure such a future requires us to learn from our mistakes in the past. Solid policies are required that secure the best future for all.

Lessons learned from the COVID-19 lockdown

Monday, 18 May 2020

The COVID-19 crisis has changed how we live our lives and, in many ways, served to highlight inefficiencies or flaws in how we have structured our society or how we conduct our business. The pandemic and subsequent lockdown has also caused many of us to re-evaluate our perspectives on how society operates, and given us new found respect for certain professions and industries. Here are some lessons we hope that policymakers have learned from this current situation.

What could a Wellbeing Budget look like for Ireland?

Thursday, 14 May 2020

COVID-19 will have many implications for Budget 2021. Not least should be the recognition of the need for a functioning society for all underpinned and supported by a vibrant and sustainable economy. Last year, New Zealand’s Government launched its first “wellbeing budget”, basing its allocations on wellbeing priorities for its citizens. Speaking at the launch, the Finance Minister stated: “Success is making New Zealand a great place to make a living and a great place to make a life”. Could such an approach work for Ireland? We believe it could, and it seems that the parties discussing the formation of a new Government agree. Here, we discuss some practical proposals that can be introduced in Budget 2021 that will deliver such a Wellbeing Budget.

Name	Domain	Expiration	Description
CookieScriptConsent	www.socialjustice.ie	1 month	This cookie is used by Cookie-Script.com service to remember visitor cookie consent preferences. It is necessary for Cookie-Script.com cookie banner to work properly.
AWSELBCORS	www.podbean.com	5 minutes	The cookies AWSELB and AWSELBCORS are functionally the same cookies. The latter has an explicit SameSite attribute set because of changes made from Chrome 80 and upwards.
__cf_bm	.podbean.com	30 minutes	This cookie is used to distinguish between humans and bots. This is beneficial for the website, in order to make valid reports on the use of their website.

Name	Domain	Expiration	Description
_ga	.socialjustice.ie	2 years	This cookie name is associated with Google Universal Analytics - which is a significant update to Google's more commonly used analytics service. This cookie is used to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier. It is included in each page request in a site and used to calculate visitor, session and campaign data for the sites analytics reports.
_gid	.socialjustice.ie	1 day	This cookie is set by Google Analytics. It stores and update a unique value for each page visited and is used to count and track pageviews.

Name	Domain	Expiration	Description
_gat_gtag_UA_30714684_1	.socialjustice.ie	1 minute	This cookie is part of Google Analytics and is used to limit requests (throttle request rate).
YSC	.youtube.com	Session	This cookie is set by YouTube to track views of embedded videos.
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE	.youtube.com	6 months	This cookie is set by Youtube to keep track of user preferences for Youtube videos embedded in sites;it can also determine whether the website visitor is using the new or old version of the Youtube interface.