Category: Irish Society

Higher education policy in Ireland: achievements and challenges

| 5 Comments
| Irish Society, Universities

ESRI logo, via the ESRI websiteI attended the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) Higher Education Policy Conference yesterday on the topic “Higher Education Policy: Evidence from Ireland and Europe”. In the first session, Dr Selina McCoy of the ESRI spoke on “Higher education research in Ireland: where are we now?” and Muiris O’Connor of the Higher Education (HEA) spoke on “Higher education policy in Ireland: achievements and challenges”. In the second session, Professor David Raffe, Director of the Centre for Educational Sociology in the University of Edinburgh spoke on “Higher education policies across the UK since devolution” and Research Professor Liv Anne Støren of the Norwegian Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education, Oslo spoke on “New trends in higher education in Norway – Are traditional male students ousted by female working class students and immigrant students?”. It was a fascinating series of presentations. Muiris O’Connor’s paper was an excellent survey of the evolution and present state of the Irish higher education sector. David Raffe’s paper put the higher education policy issues into context. Selina McCoy examined the very important specific issue of access to higher education in Ireland, whilst Live Anne Støren provided a comparative perspective on that issue.…

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Futher points of law

| 2 Comments
| Central Applications Office, Irish Society, Legal Education

Central Applications Office animated logo, via their site

The CAO needs no introduction to the present generation of school-leavers or their parents. Since 1976 it has enabled our institutions of third-level learning to reconcile annually the choices of the hopefuls — more than 60,000 last year — seeking to embark on a chosen career path.

This is how Fennelly J began his judgment for the Supreme Court in Central Applications Office v Minister for Community Rural and Galeltacht Affairs [2010] IESC 32 (13 May 2010). The Court granted a declaration that respondent Minister did not have the power under the Official Languages Act, 2003 (also here) to designate the applicant as a public body subject to obligations imposed by the Act concerning the conduct of its affairs in both official languages. The CAO today publishes its second round of offers of third level places for the forthcoming academic year, and in the inauspicious technical landscape of a Supreme Court appeal, Fennelly J provided an excellent primer on the operations of the Central Applications Office (the CAO; logo, above left):

is a company limited by guarantee and is a non-profit body. It was formed in 1976 and is based in Galway. … The State has no responsibility for its operation.

…

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Making the point

| 3 Comments
| Central Applications Office, Irish Society, Legal Education

Central Applications Office animated logo, via their siteMany things about Ireland bemuse visitors to our shores. Two of the most difficult to explain are our electoral system and the programme by which third level places are allocated. I’ll leave the former to other election anoraks for the time being, but the latter is much in the news this week, so I’ll try to give a simple account of how it works.

The Central Applications Office (logo, above left) processes all applications to first year undergraduate courses in the country’s various third level institutions. In early summer, students at the end of their secondary (high) school careers sit a state examination, and the results are published in early August. During the course of that final year, most of the students will have filled in a list of their preferred third level courses and returned it to the CAO. In mid-August, the CAO assign university places to students based on their exam results.

Allocation of places is simply a function of demand and supply. A third level institution will inform the CAO of the number of places in a given course, and the CAO’s computer will allot places on the course to the highest qualified applicants who had applied for that course.…

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May is the ICCL’s Know Your Rights Month!

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| Digital Rights, Irish Law, Irish Society, Privacy

ICCL Know Your RightsMay 2010 is the ICCL‘s Know Your Rights Month! The ICCL’s Know Your Rights public information project is designed to inform people in clear and accessible language about their rights under various key areas of the law in Ireland. There are two key projects. The first is a series of information packs covering key human rights areas: Criminal Justice and Garda Powers, Privacy and the European Convention on Human Rights. They are written in plain English, and will be updated regularly as the law changes, providing accessible and accurate information. As well as being available for download free of charge, they are also being distributed to libraries and citizens’ information centres nationwide.

The second key project is a series of roadshows to raise awareness of human rights and to help those giving advice on foot of the ICCL information packs. The first of these roadshow events will take place on Wednesday 19 May 2010, from 2:00pm to 4:00pm in the Community and Social Enterprise Centre, 8 North Mall, Cork. Those interested should contact the ICCL’s Joanne Garvey to reserve a place.

I am particularly impressed by the privacy pack, covering the following areas:

This morning‘s Today with Pat Kenny radio show on RTÉ Radio 1 featured a slot on protecting privacy which discussed the ICCL Know Your Rights campaign in general and the privacy pack in particular.…

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Economic Rights in the Drafting of the Irish Free State Constitution

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| Conferences, Lectures, Papers and Workshops, Irish Law, Irish Society, Legal Theory

UCC logoAt the Irish Jurisprudence Society (IJS) Symposium, the fifth paper is being delivered by Thomas Patrick Murray (UCD) on The Politics of Property and Principle: Economic Rights in the Drafting of the Irish Free State Constitution. It is a fascinating use of archival material to underpin a theoretical discussion of the deliberations of the committee drafting the IFS constitution concerning the possibilities of constitutional engineering to create economic constraints and guarantees. In particular, he compares various drafts of various committee members on various issues, and locates their perspectives in their life experiences, religious convictions, and political beliefs. His conclusion is that an initial radical draft of socio-economic rights fell foul of external vested interests and the belief-systems of the majority of the committee.

Murray shows that it is clear from the archives and memoirs that, at the outset, the drafting committee paid significant attention to the economic foundations of the emerging Free State. Although economic freedom was to be secured in the first instance through formal democratic mechanisms, the framers also canvassed a number of binding economic provisions for inclusion. In particular, their focus was upon the principle of economic sovereignty, concerning land (especially farm land) and other natural resources (especially for energy generation) and the right to free elementary education.…

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The Security State and Constitutional Justice

| 1 Comment
| Conferences, Lectures, Papers and Workshops, Irish Law, Irish Society, Legal Theory

UCC logoAt the Irish Jurisprudence Society (IJS) Symposium on Jurisprudence and Legal Theory at University College Cork, the first paper was delivered by Dr Shane Kilcommins (UCC), who spoke about The Security State and Constitutional Justice: the dangers of ignoring a ‘rights-based conception of the Rule of Law’ that ensures that ‘the majority cannot travel as fast or as far as it would like’. His paper traced the present history of penology from Michel Foucault to David Garland. Garland’s work sees the present as a time of the decline of the rehabilitative ideal, the (re)emergence of punitive sanctions and expressive justice, focus on the perspective of the victim, protection by (rather than from) the state, and the (re)emergence of the prison. In many ways, Irish criminologists can point to a similar development in Ireland: the ‘tooling up’ of the executive power of the state thanks to a hyperactive legislature wanting to be seen to be tough on crime.

Kilcommins’ key point however, is that we must not overstate this development, we must not be misled by the uniqueness of the present. He cites Michel Foucault: “we should have the modesty to say to ourselves that the time we live in is not the unique or fundamental or irruptive point in history where everything is completed and begun again”.…

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Referendum should thoroughly revise free speech clause

| 7 Comments
| Blasphemy, Freedom of Expression, Irish Law, Irish Society

Celtic Biblical image, via poetheadPart 5 of the Defamation Act, 2009 (also here), which came into effect on 1 January this year, controversially makes blasphemy a criminal offence. In the view of the Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, the Constitution’s reference to blasphemy could not be ignored. It now seems that this reference might be removed. If so, the opportunity should be taken to revise the Constitution’s free speech clause in its entirety.

Stephen O’Brien reported in the Sunday Times last week that the Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, intends to propose an Autumn referendum to remove the offence of blasphemy from the Constitution (athiest.ie | Attracta | Dispatches | Guardian | Human Rights in Ireland | Human Rights World | Jurist | Bill Tormey | Volokh | William Quill). This was confirmed on Wednesday by Carol Coulter writing in the Irish Times (ABC | Catholic Lawyers | Iona | Sunday Times).

I have long argued that the protection of freedom of expression in the Irish Constitution is very puny indeed and ought to be replaced at the first opportunity. I argue in today’s Irish Times that a referendum to remove the offence of blasphemy from the Constitution would provide just that opportunity:

Referendum on blasphemy should revise free speech clause

The promised referendum to remove the reference to blasphemy from the Constitution should go further, and entirely revamp the very limited guarantee of freedom of expression … Deleting one objectionable word, rather than thoroughly revising the whole gruesome clause, would be equivalent to repairing a single broken slate on the roof of a house which needs complete refurbishment.

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Trouble in the Blog O’Sphere

| 1 Comment
| Cyberlaw, Defamation, Defamation Act 2009, Freedom of Expression, Irish cases, Irish Law, Irish Society

Technorati logo, via TechnoratiIt all began innocently enough: just before Christmas, Sunday Times journalist John Burns wrote a piece lamenting the shortcomings of blogging in Ireland. Leading bloggers naturally begged to differ. A month later, the spat was picked up by Trevor Butterworth writing on Forbes.com, who noted that “it’s hard to think of a free country more suited to blogging than Ireland”. By the same token, it’s at least as hard to think of a country more given to litigation; and the point was illustrated by a story retailed almost en passant in Butterworth’s piece:

As one journalist told me, Ireland’s media is currently abuzz over a “confidential” legal settlement against a blogger, who allegedly had to pay almost $140,000 in damages for a libelous post, seen by few, swiftly purged from the site, and readily apologized for.

This was intriguing. By the end of the week, John Burns in the Sunday Times had the full story:

A blogger has agreed a €100,000 settlement after libelling Niall Ó Donnchú, a senior civil servant, and his girlfriend Laura Barnes. It is the first time in Ireland that defamatory material on a blog has resulted in a pay-out. … In December 1, 2006, a blogger who styles himself as Ardmayle posted a comment about the couple … Following a legal complaint, he took down the blog and in February 2007 he posted an apology which had been supplied by Ó Donnchú’s and Barnes’ lawyer … However, the pair subsequently issued separate proceedings.

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