The Irish Welfare State in the Twenty-First Century
Challenges and Change

Editors: Mary P. Murphy, Fiona Dukelow



This book provides a critical and theoretically-informed assessment of the nature and types of structural change occurring in the Irish welfare state in the context of the 2008 economic crisis. Its overarching framework for conceptualising and analysing welfare state change and its political, economic and social implications is based around four crucial questions, namely what welfare is for, who delivers welfare, who pays for welfare, and who benefits.  Over the course of ten chapters, the authors examine the answers as they relate to social protection, labour market activation, pensions, finance, water, early child education and care, health, housing and corporate welfare.  They also innovatively address the impact of crisis on the welfare state in Northern Ireland. The result is to isolate key drivers of structural welfare reform, and assess how globalisation, financialisation, neo-liberalisation, privatisation, marketisation and new public management have deepened and diversified their impact on the post-crisis Irish welfare state. This in-depth analysis will appeal to sociologists, economists, political scientists and welfare state practitioners interested in the Irish welfare state and more generally in the analysis of welfare state change.

Table of contents

Front Matter
Pages i-xxv

Introduction
Pages 1-12

Welfare States: How They Change and Why
Pages 13-35

The Irish Social Protection System: Change in Comparative Context
Pages 37-65

Activation: Solving Unemployment or Supporting a Low-Pay Economy?
Pages 67-92

Redistribution in the Irish Pension System: Upside Down?
Pages 93-118

Personal Finance: Financial Services, Access to Credit and Debt Management
Pages 119-139

Irish Water Services Reform: Past, Present and Future
Pages 141-165

Reform of the Irish Healthcare System: What Reform?
Pages 167-191

Early Childhood Education and Care: A Neglected Policy Arena?
Pages 193-214

New Managerialism: A Political Project in Irish Education
Pages 215-235

Social Housing Policy and Provision: A Changing Regime?
Pages 237-259

Crisis and Corporate Welfare
Pages 261-285

Ireland and Crisis: One Island, Two Different Experiences
Pages 287-308

Conclusion: The Changing Irish Welfare State
Pages 309-326

Back Matter
Pages 327-337