A Long-Standing Crisis Earlier this week, RTE organised a televised debate about the different positions on housing ahead of the General Election. While we might have qualms about importing televised debates as a means to discuss such important societal factors, it is certainly the case that housing should be near the centre of our thinking… Read more »

Apply by Friday November 29th at 5pm JCFJ exists to promote justice for all through theological reflection, social analysis and research, action, education, and advocacy. The Centre has focused on a range of issues in recent years, including penal policy, the housing and homelessness crisis, environmental justice, and the need for a more just and… Read more »

If you trace the lines of longitude on a map of the world, you discover something counter-intuitive about Ireland. Dublin is at 53.3498° N, which means it is further north than Winnipeg. The daily mean temperature in Winnipeg in January is -16.3°C. Introducing the AMOC Every Junior Cert student in the country can explain why… Read more »

Last week the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published its State of the Environment Report 2024 which outlines, in no uncertain terms, the degraded state of every part of our environment and tracks its downward trends since the last publication in 2020. The 2020 report came out early in the current Government’s term and was an… Read more »

Housing and transport are intrinsically linked. They influence so many facets of each other that considering one without the other is folly. Everything from where we locate homes and accommodation, the number of parking spaces, the space given over to access roads and driveways, green space in urban areas, bus routes, train capacity and where… Read more »

This time last year I penned a piece which could nearly be reproduced word for word today – “We sit in soggy Ireland and observe the utter destruction which is being unleashed in several places across the globe”. This year, similar to last year, we read about heatwaves across Europe, Americas and Asia – in Greece several… Read more »

‘Children in Gaza are being shot by snipers’ This is a sentence that should never have to be uttered or written but unfortunately these are the words of Dr Mark Perlmutter, an American doctor who volunteered at a hospital in Gaza in April and May of this year. The children of Gaza are also starving.… Read more »

The reason we gathered was to demand the full implementation of the Dublin Transport Plan, that has been developed over years by expert engineers and city officials. It has been subject to extensive public consultation. It has been voted on twice by the elected representatives of the city. And it is being held up because the CEO of the Council has capitulated to a small group of business leaders, who have the backing of a junior minister who, new to the job, is quickly exploring just how far she can reach.

Dublin city centre is unusually congested. It is estimated that the extent of traffic in the capital costs hundreds of millions of euros a year in lost productivity. For these very practical reasons, the city council has committed to a new transport plan. Initially will involve a couple of hundred metres of bus gates and… Read more »

Where other laws and protections have failed, there is hope that the EU Nature Restoration Law will succeed. It is the first continent-wide, comprehensive law of its kind. It aims to ensure that 20% of EU’s land and sea are protected by 2030 with all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050. The scale of this ambition means that European-wide restoration work will make a significant difference to the overall health of Europe’s biodiversity.