Garret FitzGerald Lecture and Autumn School

UCD College of Social Sciences and Law will host the Garret FitzGerald Lecture and Autumn School on Monday 19th October, in the UCD Sutherland School of Law. The daytime School (from midday) will focus on the significance of the social sciences. The evening Lecture will be delivered by Professor Cass R Sunstein,Harvard Law School, on the theme ‘Is Behavioural Science Compatible with Democracy?’. More details and bookings here.

Housing the Homeless

James Surowiecki has an interesting piece on housing the homeless here.

Symposium at NUI Maynooth: “Can Social Investment Save Social Europe?”

On Thurs., 29th of May, a special seminar on Social Investment in Europe will be hosted by the Department of Sociology/ NIRSA, Political Economy and Work Cluster and the New Deals in the New Economy project. The seminar will run from 9.30 to 1.30 and will be followed by the launch of a new MA in Sociology (Work, Labour Markets and Employment) by Minister Joan Burton.

‘Social Investment’ focuses on investing in people’s skills and capacities and supporting them to participate fully in employment and social life (EU Commission). Does ‘social investment’ lead to a renewal or an erosion of the welfare state? Will ‘social investment’ support economic and social recovery?

The event will start at 9.30 with registration and coffee followed by the seminar at 10.00 in the Phoenix building on the North Campus in NUIM keynoted by Prof Anton Hemerijck, VU University Amsterdam and Prof Brian Nolan, UCD, and chaired by Prof. Seán Ó Riain.

Following a break for coffee there will be a roundtable discussion with: Rossella Ciccia (NUIM), Tom Healy (NERI) and Rory O’Donnell (NESC), chaired by Mary Murphy (NUIM).

See more at: http://www.nuim.ie/sociology/news/can-social-investment-save-social-europe

Please register for seminar by emailing newdeals@nuim.ie before May 26th, 2014

Survey on Income and Living Conditions

The results from the 2012 wave of the EU-SILC have been published by the CSO.

There had been some difficulties with the statistics estimated from the survey in previous years which may account for the lag in getting the 2012 data published.  The data was collected between January 2012 and January 2013.

The main results are summarised in this table.

Of the reported 2012 changes in the poverty and income inequality measures, only the change in the deprivation rate is reported as being statistically significant.

The average weekly net equivalised disposable income for the bottom decile was €118.55 in 2012.  Income decile data was not provided in the 2011 release and the 2010 figures were withdrawn.  In the 2009 release, the average weekly equivalised net disposable income for the bottom decile was €160.05.

Comparable figures for the top decile are €1,041.71 in 2009 and €958.44 in 2012.  It should be noted that possible differences in the composition of the deciles between years make such changes difficult to fully interpret.  The income shares by decile are provided in this table.

The first table here shows that average equivalised disposable income for the population fell by 10.5 per cent between 2009 (€23,326) and 2012 (€20,856).  The second table shows that the share going to the bottom decile fell by 16.7 per cent between the same years (from 3.6 per cent in 2009 to 3.0 per cent in 2012). 

There is more detail in the full publication.  The Department of Social Protection have issued this press release.

Doublespeak of the day

According to the Irish Independent, Minister Noonan was worrying in public last night about the shortage of family homes in the Dublin area. But he also apparently said:

“We need to get property prices up another bit.”

To which the only possible response is: “why”?

If you are stuck in a malfunctioning currency union and can’t devalue, then don’t you want to get all costs down as much as possible, especially if they are going to feed into wage demands? Why interfere with the market in this particular case?