Policy papers and strategies should not just be taken at face value. They must be read with a critical eye to reveal their hidden meanings or obscured agendas. Their true meaning will emerge via an interpretation in which suspicion plays a crucial role.

Whether they wanted it or not, this Government’s fortunes are inextricably linked with housing.

A timely Inspector of Prisons’ Annual Report, published by the Department on Friday, provides much which should form the basis of such a debate on the future of our prison system. Here are what we in the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice consider the main points of interest in the report.

With the emergence of multiple vaccines, Ireland is in a very different position today compared with five months ago, when we entered into the highest level of lockdown just after Christmas. Yesterday, the Minister for Health announced that more than half of the adult population had received their first dose of a vaccine, with over… Read more »

A decade into the most recent Irish housing affordability and homelessness crisis, few adjectives or perojatives have not be used. We want to propose a new word for describing these events: apocalyptic.

Following a 10-day “grace period” after the blanket eviction ban ends today, April 23rd is the date when evictions can resume in the private rental sector.

We can see that the claims that landlords are fleeing the Irish housing market is false. There is no grand exodus. And the stable numbers of landlords have less debt and more revenue than they have had in the past.

This blog post is the final of a three part series on policy-making as storytelling. In this week’s piece, Keith Adams considers how to make further sense of the stories around homelessness by looking at the sources of the housing which families enter into as they exit homelessness and how we can end homelessness.

In the second of our three-part series on Policy-making as Storytelling, Keith Adams continues to analyse the Quarterly Homeless Progress Reports to see who remains in emergency accommodation, and for how long? In next week’s final piece, we will look at how we can prevent homelessness.

This blog post is the first of a three part series by the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice on policy-making as storytelling. Using the Quarterly Homeless Progress Reports, this series will consider the stories which are central to homeless policy in Ireland and if other stories exist. This post will focus on exits from homelessness with the second post next week reflecting on families prevented from entering homelessness. Duration of stay in emergency accommodation will be the focus of the third blog post and round off the series.