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IRELAND IS SPLIT between people who have good jobs – and people who don’t.
That’s the opinion of the director of the progressive think-tank TASC, Dr Nat O’Connor, who said today that improving infrastructure and incomes, access to education, health and social care services along with reforming the tax system are central to tackling inequality.
He believes that Irish society is split between those with ‘good jobs’, full-time on good pay, and those without work or those in low-paying, part-time or irregular jobs.
Challenge of economic inequality
Dr O’Connor will speak at TASC’s fifth Annual Conference, The Challenge of Economic Inequality to Recovery and Wellbeing, which is being hosted in conjunction with the Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) in Croke Park today.
The keynote address at the conference will be given by Thomas Piketty, Associate Chair, Paris School of Economics and author of Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Patrick Honohan, Governor of the Central Bank, will deliver the response to his address.
Dr O’Connor describes getting good quality employment as remaining the primary equaliser for many people.
If you can get one of the increasingly elusive good jobs, then you can probably afford the car, the house and to bring up your family with some dignity. But there are simply not enough jobs to go around and the forces of globalisation and technological change help explain why this has happened with computers reducing the need for clerical workers.
He said that extreme inequality “has very real consequences”.
How can things be changed?
Dr O’Connor will unveil a series of proposals at today’s conference aimed at solving the issue. These include:
He will also call for adjustments to be made to Ireland’s tax system so that the proposed improvements to our public services can be paid for.
What do you think of Dr O’Connor’s proposals? Tell us in the comments.
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having read this article and in particular the final paragraph i think the heading is misleading and should be changed.
The use of statistical language here is also sensationalising the subject. While the probability may be 8 times larger, if the probability of a young man passing mutations is 1/10,000 and the probability of elderly man passing them on is 8/10,000 it is still a rare event.
Need more info to realise the true meaning of these “stats”
Heard another one yesterday saying older mothers made better…whatever actually can’t remember…there’s much crap ‘surveys’ our there, parents please ignore, make you afraid to have kids!!!
older mothers were more likely to have kids with better speech and less accident’s because the kids are more precious 2 them. wat bullshit like who’s kids aren’t precious 2them? I’m 21 and my 2 halfyear old son has brilliant speech and can hold a conversation. a 45year old I know has a child the same age and he’s had stitches in his head a dislocated wrist and I can never understand a word he’s saying… js sayin.
Eire if your child’s speech is on a par with your text speak rant you may have to reconsider his intellectual prowess
Charlie Murphy. seriously? fool
Mutations are the reason the human race has survived. Harmful mutations generally disappear in a population. The rest imbed the ability to adapt to changing environmental stress. Look at sickle-cell syndrome in Africans which helps resist malaria.
The potential for autism and bipolar is being hugely exaggerated by this research.
have your say