Changes in income poverty and deprivation over time : a comparison of eight European countries from the mid-eighties to the mid-nineties with special attention to the situation of the unemployed ; this paper was also published as working paper 3 of EPUSE (the employment precarity, unemployment and social exclusion project), Oxford, october 1998

All-over in Europe, unemployment became a growing problem from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s. Nevertheless, the effects on the economical situation of the unemployed and the whole population are quite different in European countries. In this paper we first give a brief overview over the development of unemployment rates in eight member states of the European Union and over the different reactions to provide the social protection of the unemployed. Therefore we look at the social security expenditures, the level of income replacement for the unemployed and recent social policy reforms concerning them. In the second section of the paper, we examine the development of income distribution and poverty taking different poverty lines into consideration. There is no general pattern neither for the relationship of inequality among the unemployed to the whole economically active population nor for the development from the 80s to the 90s. But one can say that in countries with increasing income inequality also poverty is rising (especially in the UK) and that where inequality among the unemployed is less pronounced the proportions of the poor went down from the mid 80s to the mid 90s (France and Ireland). In nearly all countries the risk of being poor is ernormously high for the unemployed, Denmark is the only exception

Equity in the Utilisation of Health Care in Ireland

This paper analyses the extent of equity of health service delivery across the income distribution in Ireland – that is the extent to which there is equal treatment for equal need irrespective of income. We find that almost all services, apart from dental and optician services, are used more by those at the lower end of the income distribution, but that this group also have the greatest need for health care. The comparison of health need to health care delivery across the income distribution without standardising for confounding factors suggests that those in higher income groups receive more health care for a given health status indicating inequity. However, need for health care is highest among the elderly and this group also tend to be at the bottom of the income distribution. Once we standardise for age, sex and location we find that hospital services are distributed equitably across the income distribution, whereas GP and prescription services tend to be pro-poor (used more by those with lower incomes for a given health status) and dental and optician services tend to be pro-rich (used more by those with higher incomes for a given health status).

Reform of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts: Procedural and Operational Changes

[Excerpt] The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 was the product of sweeping congressional investigation and deliberation prompted by perceived electronic surveillance abuses by the executive branch. Among other things, FISA established the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to review government applications to conduct electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review (FISA Court of Review) to review the decisions of the FISC. In the wake of revelations in June 2013 concerning the scope of orders issued by the FISC, many have questioned the efficacy of the current mechanisms for reviewing the executive branch’s intelligence gathering practices. While some have proposed altering the underlying substantive law that regulates such surveillance, other proposals address the practice and procedures of authorizing such surveillance activities. This report begins with an overview of both the FISC and the FISA Court of Review, including the jurisdiction of these courts, how the judges are appointed, and the FISC’s practices and procedures for reviewing and issuing surveillance orders. The report then discusses the scope and underlying legal principles behind congressional regulation of the procedures of the federal courts, and applies those principles with respect to the various proposals to reform the FISA judicial review process. These reforms include requiring the FISC to hear arguments from “friends of the court” or amici curiae, who would brief the court on the privacy or civil liberty interests implicated by a government application; mandating that in certain instances the FISC sit en banc—that is, with all 11 FISC judges; and altering the voting rules of the FISC and FISA Court of Review

The changing effects of social protection on poverty

This paper fits within a broader research programme concerned with the processes that link labour market precarity and social exclusion. Labour market insecurity manifests itself most directly in the form of unemployment, and other elements in the programme seek to measure the impact of precarity, and unemployment in particular, on poverty and social exclusion in the eight countries covered. One of the principal concerns of the programme is however the extent to which institutional differences across countries with respect to the labour market and social protection are a significant factor mediating the relationship between labour market precarity and social exclusion. This paper focuses on the effectiveness of cash transfers, the central element of social protection systems, in alleviating the effects of unemployment on income poverty. The structures of social protection systems vary greatly across European Union member states, and in many cases have altered significantly in recent years in response to high unemployment (see Hauser et al, 1998). Using data from the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s for six member countries, the paper compares the effectiveness of different systems in lifting or keeping the unemployed out of poverty, and how this has been affected by the way systems have responded to the challenges produced by developments in the labour market in the past decade. The specific role of social insurance-based unemployment-linked transfers versus other cash transfers is also considered, to assess the extent to which social insurance has been able to cope with changes in the labour market over the period. The data come from a variety of national large-scale household surveys. The paper is structured as follows. Section 2 discusses the data and methods to be employed in measuring the impact of cash transfers on poverty risks for the unemployed. Section 3 looks at the overall risks of poverty for the unemployed before and after cash transfers, and how these changed between the mid-1980s and mid-1990s. Section 4 looks at the role of social insurance-based unemployment payments versus other cash transfers. Section 5 examines the extent to which the impact of transfers varies by gender and by duration of unemployment. Section 6 highlights the key patterns identified and what these tell us about the relationship between the type of welfare regime a country operates and effectiveness in alleviating poverty among the unemployed

Provider Choice of Quality and Surplus

We study the quality choices of institutional health-care providers, such as hospitals, assuming that the utility function of the key organizational decision-maker includes both quality of care and financial surplus. An increase in the decision-maker’s rate of surplus retention leads to a decrease (increase) in quality if his coefficient of relative risk aversion is less than (greater than) 1, as is likely when the decision-maker faces prosperous (difficult) financial conditions. Such behavior is consistent with "target income behavior," where the target income is surplus sufficient to break even. An increase in productive efficiency always leads the provider to increase quality.

Reassessing Income and Deprivation Approaches to the Measurement of Poverty in the Republic of Ireland

This paper reassesses the validity of a poverty measure combining relative income and non-monetary deprivation indicators, first developed and applied to Irish data for 1987, in the light of experience since then and current debates. A crucial issue is whether the measure has failed to capture fundamental changes in livings patterns and expectations. A range of analyses confirm that it continues to identify a set of households experiencing distinctive levels of generalised deprivation, economic strain, psychological distress and exposure to persistent income poverty.

Overview of Constitutional Challenges to NSA Collection Activities and Recent Developments

[Excerpt] Beginning in the summer of 2013, media reports of foreign intelligence activities conducted by the National Security Agency (NSA) have been published and are apparently based on unauthorized disclosures of classified information by Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor. The reports have focused on two main NSA collection activities conducted under the auspices of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978. The first is the bulk collection of telephony metadata for domestic and international telephone calls. The second involves the interception of Internet-based communications and is targeted at foreigners who are not within the United States, but may also inadvertently acquire the communications of U.S. persons. As the public’s awareness of these programs has grown, Members of Congress and the public have increasingly voiced concerns about the constitutionality of these programs. This report provides a description of these two programs and the various constitutional challenges that have arisen in judicial forums with respect to each. Although a brief overview of the constitutional arguments and issues raised in the assorted cases is included, a detailed analysis or evaluation of those arguments is beyond the scope of this report

Growing Up in Ireland. National Longitudinal Study of Children. Report 7 2017

Using data from the first two waves of the Infant Cohort of GUI (i.e., when the children were aged 9 months and 3 years), this report examines the following research questions: • Does eligibility for free GP care affect children’s use of GP services? • Does type of private health insurance cover affect children’s use of GP services? • Are user fees for GP care a particular burden on children from low income families without a medical card? • As children are dependent on their parents for decision-making in relation to healthcare utilisation, do parental characteristics (e.g., family structure, education, employment status, etc.) affect their child’s use of GP services

IMPROVING ACCESS TO PRIMARY CARE IN IRELAND: DO GP CHARGES MATTER? ESRI Research Bulletin 2009/2/1

Media coverage of health care in Ireland tends to focus almost exclusively on hospital services, waiting lists and patients waiting on trolleys in accident and emergency departments. Hospital care is certainly an important component of health care but research evidence shows that investment in primary care is more important for maintaining and improving population health. Routine access to primary care improves primary prevention and disease avoidance, while also allowing for early intervention and amelioration. Such activities improve population health more effectively and cost efficiently than expensive hospital intervention at later stages of illness. The potential role of primary care can only become more crucial as the Irish population ages over the next two to three decades and chronic diseases which can be managed but not cured increasingly dominate. As the most important component of primary care, GP services have a vital and increasing role to play in maintaining and improving population health, and it is this component of primary care that we focus on in this research overview

Socioeconomic Differentials in Male Mortality in Ireland: 1984-2008. ESRI WP470. October 2013

The presence of pronounced inequalities in mortality and life expectancy across income, education and social groups is now well established. Research across a large number of developed and wealthy countries, including Ireland, has shown that those with fewer resources, less education or a lower occupational class have higher standardized mortality rates (SMRs) than more advantaged individuals Research for Ireland for the period 1989-1991 indicated that men in the unskilled manual social class had a mortality rate 2.8 times that of men in the higher professional social class. However, serious issues with the occupational coding of mortality data for the years since 1991 have meant that there has been no subsequent analysis of trends in socio-economic inequalities in mortality. The period since then has been characterised by an unprecedented boom and bust in economic activity which may well have influenced mortality differentials between socio- economic groups. The SMR in 2008 was 37% lower than in 1984 and 30% lower than in 1995. Using annual mortality data from the CSO over the period 1984-2008, this paper examines whether the overall downward trend in mortality observed over this period was experienced equally by all socio-economic groups (SEG) whilst adjusting the SMRs to take account of the coding issues effecting data on occupation/SEG. We use three methods to deal with the coding issues in the data across time: direct adjustment; imputation and a fully Bayesian imputation. Using these approaches we find that the differential in SMRs between professional and unskilled men aged 15+ decreased between 1984 and the early 1990s but then increased significantly thereafter as the SMR for professional men continued to decrease whilst that of unskilled men stabilised and then began to increase