“You have to understand, that no one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land”– Home by Warsan Shire. For the past decade, one the most urgent issues we have seen in Europe is migration and the movement of people fleeing persecution from their countries of origin. This issue has grown rapidly in 2022, due to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February of this year.  As of August 2022, it is estimated that over 6 million Ukrainian people have sought refuge across Europe, with 35,670 Personal Public Service Numbers (PPSNs) issued in Ireland to individuals from ..read more

My name is James Cawley and I am the newly appointed Chairperson of EAPN. I’m honoured to take on this position and to work with an extremely supportive board and a hardworking and talented staff team. I am a proud Disabled man from Drumlish in rural Co. Longford where I live with my wife Ally. Professionally, I work as Policy Officer with Independent Living Movement Ireland (ILMI) a national Disabled Person’s Organisation (DPO) as defined under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) which is led by and for Disabled people. I went to University throug ..read more

Please find enclosed a letter written by members of the Community and Voluntary sector, to representatives across all political parties, calling for the inclusion of socioeconomic status as grounds for discrimination in Irish equality legislation, as part of the new Programme for Government. The post Socio-economic Status: Programme for Government appeared first on EAPN Ireland ..read more

One of the main areas of political and media focus over the past number of months has been the steep rise in the cost of living experienced by people across the country. This is an experience shared across the world. This spike over the past year has been driven mainly by increasing cost of fuel and energy, and more recently, by the war in Ukraine. Price inflation rose by 5.7% for the year to March 2022, with the ESRI forecasting that it could hit 8.5% later this year, a level not seen since the 1980’s. This is a very worrying situation, particularly for those on the lowest incomes who were al ..read more

The cost of accommodation is a major factor in determining the quality of life for the majority of people. The average adult expects to be able to meet certain living costs, primarily accommodation, energy and more recently communication costs. Many young families may also have childcare costs, which in Ireland are substantial. The cost of accommodation is not included in the calculation of poverty levels but for many, availability and cost of accommodation can result in overcrowding and homelessness driving people into poverty and desolation. Ireland has a long-standing housing problem arisin ..read more

 “It’s not possible for anyone to become rich without cheating other people.” ― Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists Working in a Local Development Company I have over the years come across many service users working for minimum wage, some for up to 10 years in businesses where the owners are making substantial profits. Whether or not you fully agree with Tressells overall premise, what is that if not cheating? One of the few positives of the pandemic is that it has highlighted the difficult and valuable work undertaken by workers who are often subject to low pa ..read more

Originally promoted by the National Economic and Social Forum (NESF) in 2005, a now defunct social partnership body that included the community and voluntary sector, very few of those working in or supporting the community sector had expressed doubts about the concept of evidence-based policymaking. However, many more joined the ranks following its adoption and integration into state funded programmes delivered by community or local development organisations. Like many other innovative concepts, evidence-based policy approaches drifted across the Irish sea, it being a central element of the so ..read more

There’s an old man in the Simpsons cartoon.  He has a scaly, wrinkled face, a few wisps of scraggy hair on top, was probably a lifelong smoke and he bemoans how over the previous thirty years or so the performance of his football team degenerated.  He even has a subtitle: ‘embittered veteran’. I was there at the start of the European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN).  The French had a great phrase, ‘assistance technique’ (technical assistance), an elastic formula which crossed a spectrum between note-taker, writer and advisor (I was at the writer end).  There was a three-day con ..read more

The 30th anniversary of EAPN offers the chance to pause and reflect on past achievements, to reflect on the work done and to draw lessons for the ongoing struggle to eradicate poverty. To do that I want to present a quick ‘history’ of the development of social policy and the fight against poverty, in the EU, over that thirty-year period. At each and every stage of that history EAPN has been an active contributor helping to shape that story. I call on EAPN to remain focused on its mission to play an active role within a broad vision for societal transformation, to address the challenges of our ..read more

In normal circumstances, Ireland needs to build about 25,000 units of accommodation per year. In the extraordinary situation that came about on foot of the collapse of the housing market in 2008 that estimate has risen to 35,000 per year to accommodate the backlog that has built up since then [1]. So, there is a huge availability problem, but affordability is also a problem. In a recent article in the Irish Times[2], Orla Hegarty, assistant professor UCD school of architecture, planning and environmental policy, points to the significant increase in the purchase price of accommodation between ..read more