National University of Ireland, Maynooth
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“Can Ireland keep us safe?” – a view from the Latin American community.
No full textThis study, distinguished by its unique approach of considering the central cultural values, migration reasons, and prior experiences of a particular community in Ireland, aims to fill an existing gap in the perception of risk and the security attitude. By examining these factors, the study promises to shed new light on the complex relationship between cultural values, migration, and perceptions of policing, making it a compelling and intriguing research for the academic community.
Groups of immigrants, including the Latin American community, bring with them a rich tapestry of cultural values and prior experiences that significantly shape their perceptions of policing. As Arisukwu (2012) argues, the experience in the country of residence is as significant as that of those from their hometown, which remains deeply ingrained. Immigrants often view and interpret their present insights using their home countries as a point of reference (Menjívar & Bejarano, 2004), a perspective crucial to understanding their unique and significant perceptions of policing.
In this sense, over the past two decades, most Latin American countries have been struggling to create or reform their police forces while simultaneously confronting intense increases in violent crime. Reformers have gravitated toward community-oriented policing practices, which aim to rely on preventive tactics rather than repressive ones and build close ties between police members and the public. Still, unfortunately, these reforms occurred against a backdrop of rising problems and insecurity (Malone & Dammert, 2021).
As a result, citizens across the region have identified insecurity as a top priority and rank insecurity as the most pressing nationwide issue in some countries. This high level of violence and antisocial behaviour have made it extremely difficult for many nations to abandon repressive policing practices, and the political system came around by reacting against what it was called ‘soft on crime’, which aftermath could eventually benefit the interests of criminals over the rights of people. What matters most to people in Latin America is the effectiveness of police in achieving goals such as arrest, detention, and forfeiture. Similarly, some argued that the policing paradigm should prioritise increasing control as the principal mechanism to consolidate police legitimacy (Hough, 2013).
Ultimately, this research not only aims to understand the Latin American community's perception of policing in Ireland but also intends to explore the origins and justifications of this position deeply. In doing so, it raises important questions about these people's feelings about Garda´s role, their stance concerning firearms, police discretion of search and arrest, deprotection perception, and emotional background
Identities of Confinement: Understanding the Intersectional Experiences of Incarcerated Women in Ireland and Beyond
No full textThis research aims to inform the current penal landscape in Ireland for women intersecting across various identities. The intersectional basis for this study looks beyond just the singular axis views of women in prison through the context of Kimberlé Crenshaw’s explorations (1989) and considers other important factors that could shape their experiences, such as race, socioeconomic status, motherhood, age and the overarching factor of being a women, as they present as minorities within penal landscapes.
Through Secondary Qualitative analysis from Irish and UK sources, this research evaluated the elements that shape women’s experiences interacting with healthcare and education inside prisons. The findings suggest that women are aware of their disparities and minority status’ as the acts of storytelling and information sharing within the prison system gives insights and evaluations that shape their experience. Foreign National Prisoners and particularly the Travelling Community experience oppression in mesa to macro levels and this encourages more diversity in staff approaches so that dehumanising forms of negative behaviour affecting women in the form of labelling for example, could reduce. Foreign National Prisoner’s also experience more concern about their family abroad at home and there is usually a desperation for money that leads to their incarceration. Women who are pregnant can also thrive in environments that support their wellbeing and needs. Comparisons between UK and Ireland showed that women can benefit more than others by being in prison but if there is an environment of hostility or improper facilities, this is not the case. Recommendations for future research could be explored both qualitatively as popularly recommended, or quantitatively through specialised cohorts of women in prison. Ireland’s newest prison in Limerick is also a positive opportunity to expand research in this area.
Overall, this research contributes to Irish penology by combining sociological frameworks and applying them to existing resources, aiming to promote the various identities of women in prison and to encourage more qualitative, intersectional research in Ireland, particularly in the areas of education and upskilling
What is it that I seek? An autoethnographic exploration of my self-care needs as a helping professional.
No full textThis work is an attempt to write my way out of a dilemma I’ve had for quite some time. I say write, but to write I have had to search and research and re-search. I’ve read and re-read and listened. I’ve sat, I’ve stood, I’ve watched, I’ve observed, I’ve thought. I’ve walked and wandered and wondered. I’ve written a bit. I’ve agonised. I’ve written another bit. Deleted most of it, agonised again and started again. The process of writing about self-care this year mirrors my various attempts to identify sustainable self-care practices for over thirty years. Experimentations this year have been a series of starts and stops, learnings and un-learnings or re-learnings. My hope is that when I get to The End, it will also be the beginning of a new phase in self-care as a helping professional, one that is in keeping with my uniqueness, my nature and my interests
A Common Purpose? Social Work Students’ Social Justice Related Views in Finland and the island of Ireland
No full textExploring social work students’ views to understand how equipped they are to pursue
the social justice mission of the profession should be of central academic and practical
interest. There are, however, surprisingly few empirical studies focussing on social
work students’ views on social justice-related issues from a comparative viewpoint.
Such knowledge is thought to be of a wider international interest from a number of
perspectives, including social work education and student exchange and, in a wider
context, for the development of social work as a profession and for discussing the prerequisites for shared international notions of social work. This article explores the
views of social work students studying in different socio-economic contexts and
welfare regimes in relation to some key aspects assumed to be vital for the profession.
The results based on survey data from student cohorts in Finland (N ¼ 608) and the island of Ireland (N ¼ 279) support the general conclusion that there are important,
similar patterns of motivations and understandings amongst the students, despite substantial differences in histories, welfare state developments, current policies and social
conditions in various jurisdictions. The results are of interest to educators across countries internationally and provide an important basis for future similar studies
Real-time control of oscillating water column wave energy converters
No full textIn order to build a carbon-free society, the production of clean and affordable
electric energy is vital. Furthermore, to reduce variability and minimise the need
for potentially expensive energy storage systems, the diversification of renewable
energy resources is essential. To this end, wave energy is a significant and almost
untapped source of renewable energy, which can considerably contribute to the
renewable energy mix and, ultimately, to decarbonisation.
Wave energy converters (WECs) harness wave power by exploiting different
operating principles. However, due to the relatively high levelised cost of energy
(LCoE) associated with wave energy projects, WECs struggle to penetrate in the
electric power industry market. A key step to minimise the LCoE, and therefore
improve WEC commercialization, is to develop high-performance, real-time, control
strategies to maximise the electric energy produced over the WEC lifetime. In
particular, this thesis focuses on enhancing the economic viability of a specific
type of WEC, known as the oscillating water column (OWC) WEC, by improving
state-of-the-art OWC control techniques.
The OWC system is one of the most promising WECs, especially due to its
simplicity of operation, the possibility to easily dissipate excessive power, and the
fact that all the moving parts are above the water level, meaning that maintenance
operations are potentially less complex and expensive. To date, due to the critical
importance of turbine performance, OWC control strategies mainly focus on an
oversimplified control objective, namely turbine efficiency maximisation, ignoring
hydrodynamic and electric generator performance. In this thesis, possible staticefficiency-
based and dynamic control strategies to optimise the (overall) wave-towire
(W2W) energy conversion process of OWC WECs are designed. Furthermore,
as an alternative to relatively laborious model determination from first principles,
the potential of data-based modelling techniques to provide parsimonious, controloriented,
OWC hydrodynamic models, is investigated. Finally, to maximise OWC
WEC profitability, it is important to consider peak-shaving (or rated power) control,
to extend the OWC operational range and, consequently, improve the capacity
factor. Since peak-shaving control affects the optimal sizing problem for an OWC
PTO, a control co-design approach is devised in this thesis to assess the benefit
of rated power control. Ultimately, peak-shaving control, used in combination
with control co-design techniques, can significantly reduce the LCoE by improving
the capacity factor
Cultural Policies That Facilitate the Participation of Persons with Disabilities in the Arts: Findings from a Qualitative Multi-National Study
No full textArts and culture are central to the political struggles of people with disabilities and have the potential to transform how societies relate to disability and to realize the human rights model of disability enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Yet, low levels of participation in arts by people with disabilities are reported in many countries. We also lack research to support policy making that promotes positive measures. This article presents some of the findings from a large qualitative study across 28 European countries addressing factors perceived as facilitative of cultural participation by people representing organizations of people with disabilities. Identifying these factors is a step in supporting the deployment of policies aiming to end the exclusion of people with disabilities from the cultural sphere both as audiences and artists and to realize the human rights model of disability. In particular, findings point to the need to change the knowledge base and ethos of cultural bodies and to reform, amongst other issues, funding mechanisms, governance structures, and consultation processes. We argue that making disability inclusion more intrinsic to cultural policy has the potential to enhance diversity and ultimately to foster the participation of people with disabilities in society more broadly
A Validation of OLCI Sentinel-3 Water Products in the Baltic Sea and an Evaluation of the Effect of System Vicarious Calibration (SVC) on the Level-2 Water Products
No full textThe monitoring of coastal waters using satellite data, from sensors such as Sentinel-3 OLCI,
has become a vital tool in the management of these water environments, especially when it comes to
improving our understanding of the effects of climate change on these regions. In this study, the latest Level-2 water products derived from different OLCI Sentinel-3 processors were validated against a comprehensive in situ dataset from the NW Baltic Sea proper region through a matchup analysis.
The products validated were those of the regionally adapted Case-2 Regional Coast Colour (C2RCC)
OLCI processor (v1.0 and v2.1), as well as the latest standard Level-2 OLCI Case-2 (neural network)
products from Sentinel-3’s processing baseline, listed as follows: Baseline Collection 003 (BC003),
including “CHL_NN”, “TSM_NN”, and “ADG443_NN”. These products have not yet been validated
to such an extent in the region. Furthermore, the effect of the current EUMETSAT system vicarious
calibration (SVC) on the Level-2 water products was also validated. The results showed that the
system vicarious calibration (SVC) reduces the reliability of the Level-2 OLCI products. For example,the application of these SVC gains to the OLCI data for the regionally adapted v2.1 C2RCC products resulted in RMSD increases of 36% for “conc_tsm”; 118% for “conc_chl”; 33% for “iop_agelb”; 50% for “iop_adg”; and 10% for “kd_z90max” using a ±3 h validation window. This is the first time the effects of these SVC gains on the Level-2 OLCI water products has been isolated and quantified in the study region. The findings indicate that the current EUMETSAT SVC gains should be applied and interpreted with caution in the region of study at present. A key outcome of the paper recommends the development of a regionally specific SVC against AERONET-OC data in order to improve the Level-2 water product retrieval in the region. The results of this study are important for end users and the water authorities making use of the satellite water products in the Baltic Sea region
UNITES Project: National Mapping and Review of Home Visiting Programmes in Ireland. Report Number One
No full textThe UNITES project was commissioned (in 2022) by the Department of Children Equality Disability Integration and Youth (DCEDIY). The project involved two separate, but related stages, the aims of which were: (1) to profile and critically review home visiting provision in Ireland (Stage One); and (2) to elicit the insights, views and experiences of a wide range of stakeholders involved in managing, implementing, delivering or receiving home visiting programmes and services across the country with a view to identifying some proposed actions or ‘options’ that may provide key stepping stones toward a more standardised, effective and sustainable ‘model’ of home visiting service delivery in Ireland (Stage Two). This report presents the findings from Stage One of the UNITES project. The results of Stage Two are described in a second companion report (McGilloway et al., 2024).
The aims of Stage One were to: (1) map/scope out home visiting service provision in Ireland; and (2) to critically examine relevant evidence of effectiveness and implementation produced in a national context. The specific objectives of this desk-based study (each of which corresponds to a separate section in this report) were to:
1. Profile, map and describe current home visiting provision across Ireland
2. Examine the development and nature of provision
3. Assess the evidence of impact/outcome achievement based on the academic literature and
4. Explore aspects of implementation
Genealogy of a data ecosystem: The digitalisation of planning development and control in Ireland, 2000-2024
No full textIn this paper, we address two significant empirical and theoretical gaps in two literatures. The first is documenting how a data ecosystem emerges and evolves as a socio-technical assemblage over a substantive period of time. To date, studies of data ecosystems have examined their organization and operation at a particular point in time, but have not empirically detailed how they are constructed, maintained and change over time. The second is charting the digitalization of a planning data ecosystem as it transfers from a paper-based endeavour to one that is digitally mediated. While a number of studies have examined the adoption and use of specific digital technologies in planning, there has been no detailed examination of the suite of digital technologies that have been assembled for undertaking the day-to-day work of planning development and control (the management of the planning and construction pipeline from planning application, to appeals process, to building control). We resolve these two lacunae through a genealogical analysis of the digitalisation of the development and control function of planning and its associated data ecosystem in Ireland over a 25 year period. Our analysis reveals the contingent and relational nature of (planning) data ecosystems and the social, political and technical work that continually reconfigures their relations and practices
Why engaged critical urban research must place scholar policy activism at its core
No full textI welcome and endorse Loretta Lees’ call for a reconstituted critical urban studies tradition predicated
upon polyvocal, intersectoral and co-produced research, dialogues and dialoguing and concurrent and
compounding critical intelligences. In this short commentary, I make the case for placing scholar policy
activism at the heart of such a tradition. I explore how and why critical urban research has come to
view executive power as its arch nemesis. I argue that continued estrangement and jousting between
the architects of radical praxis and those of policy practice is indefensible. I scope the contours of a
new generation of policy engaged critical scholarship. We can no longer in good conscience fire missiles
from inside the ivory tower and outside of the governing tent in the hope that better cities will result. If we
are to be serious about ‘shaking up the city’, we will need to work with and on sources of power – to
immerse ourselves in the epistemic communities which enjoy dominion over policy registers – and recalibrate
the urban ‘partition of the sensible’