Helena Sheehan, Professor Emeritus at DCU blogs about her participation in the 24 hour strike organised by trade union in protest at austerity policies in Greece on Thursday. Photo by @damomac.

Rather than just wishing unemployment would go away, we should use the current crisis to rethink employment and unemployment completely. By Tom Boland.

Today, on International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, the Equality Budgeting Campaign has called on the Government to introduce measures “to put a halt to the growing inequality and poverty seen in Ireland since the beginning of the economic crisis”. The campaign coalition, which includes lone parent groups, disability organisations, migrant organisations, trade unions and women’s groups, among others, says that it is possible for the Government to reverse the current trend toward increased hardship for the poorest people living in Ireland.

That we can’t, that we don’t, ensure that nobody in our society goes without food says something about the kind of society that is being created for us. By Michael Taft.

While in Iceland the left-leaning Icelandic government chose to focus the impact of the adjustments necessitated by the crisis on the richest sectors of Icelandic society, in Ireland the poorest have been made to bear the brunt. By Vincent Browne.

The Labour Party didn't vote against the 2008 Credit Institutions (Financial Support) Bill, which legislated for the bank guarantee, because it opposed the guarantee or even its scope. By Vincent Browne.

Four years ago this month, the Dáil debated and then endorsed the bank guarantee scheme, which has cost this society at least €64 billion.

The current government is spending a large part of its time trying to persuade our EU partners to help us undo the damage the guarantee did to us.

Minister for Health James Reilly’s addition of two towns in his own constituency – Balbriggan and Swords – to a list of primary care centres is still causing controversy, two weeks after this story broke. Despite rounds of questioning in the Dáil and long media outings by Minister Reilly, we are no clearer now on how they got on the list and what criteria were used to compile the list. By Sara Burke.

There is a government commitment to develop primary care centres (PCCs). There are three ways of funding those centres –

We are being asked to vote on a defective constitutional proposal that extends weak protection to our children from abuse and neglect. By Vincent Browne.

There is a straightforward question to be asked about the proposed constitutional amendment concerning children. It is: why does it not include the oft-quoted and approved aspiration of the 1916 Proclamation: “cherishing all the children of the nation equally”?

When it's eventually all over, of what exactly will Labour's leading lights be proud? By Vincent Browne.

Eamon Gilmore's excruciation during his interview on 27 September with Richard Crowley of RTÉ betrayed a realisation that his failure to stand by Róisín Shortall was not just an act of personal disloyalty, but of disloyalty to what Labour supposedly stands for, and of disloyalty to the constituency which the party supposedly represents.

In a leaked email to Labour Party colleagues, Party Chairman and Galway East TD Colm Keaveney said "there is another context to the [Roisin Shorthall] story that [Eamon Gilmore] has not been able to publicly articulate, given the media atmosphere at this time". Keaveney wrote that this context "needs to be discussed with the party's members" and that he is "working with the Party Leader on convening a meeting of the Central Council for early November".