Society

Had the Fiscal Treaty been in situ during the Irish boom, it would have made no difference whatsoever to Irish budgetary policy. By Michael Taft.

In Saturday’s Irish Times Stephen Collins wrote:

Online reaction to the dismantling of the Occupy Dame Street camp paints a picture of a generation that aggressively condemns those who attempt to strike out and make a change. By David Johnson.

Today marks not only the 101st International Women’s Day but also the day on which the Irish government misses the deadline to implement an EU Directive on parental leave. Deirdre Hosford puts forward the case for reform.

Philip Soos considers the faults that plague existing copyright laws and suggests that, in an increasingly online world, we need to find more realistic options.

In the past few months, there’s been substantial media interest in the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) bill in the US, introduced ostensibly as an attempt to crack down on intellectual property rights (IPR) violations.

To mark International Women’s Day 2012, the European Women’s Lobby has put together a briefing on gender equality in the EU. The briefing covers politics, pay, employment, violence against women, women's representation in the media and the multiple discrimination many women face. Highlights from the briefing are below, and the full paper is embedded at the bottom of this piece.

Review: The Man Without a Face, The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin, by Masha Gessen, Granta, 2012.

By John Murray.

A campaign group calling for the write down of Irish debt has labelled the link being drawn between the debt and the Fiscal Treaty as “obscene and tantamount to blackmail”. Community worker and Anglo: Not Our Debt spokesperson John Bissett said he “utterly rejected any spurious quid pro quo between voting Yes in the forthcoming referendum on the Fiscal Treaty and the suspension or cancellation of the Anglo and Irish Nationwide debt.”

Governments are constructing social policy based on misrepresentations and stereotypes about poor people and welfare claimants, rather than by reference to the structural inequalities that affect everyone. By Kate Donald.

Although reform of labour activation measures is much needed, Pathways to Work will not deliver unless the economy is growing and creating jobs. By Sinéad Pentony.