Open Journal Systems Trinity College Dublin
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Household Formation and Tenure Choice: Did the Great Irish Housing Bust Alter Consumer Behaviour?
Get PDFThis paper analyses the household formation and tenure choice decisions of different age cohorts in the Irish market. We use data covering the years 2001 to 2011, a period which encompasses the boom, bubble and collapse in the Irish housing market. We find that the household formation decision is affected by the rent-to-income ratio while tenure choice depends upon the difference between rent and the user cost of housing, a notional cost of services derived from owning a home. After the crash, the balance of these costs favoured renting, resulting in a decrease in owner occupancy. In addition, we find that falling average rents caused entry to the housing market to become more affordable, and that this was linked to significantly higher household formation rates
The Impact of Displacement on the Earnings of Workers in Ireland
Get PDFIn this paper we estimate the earnings losses of displaced workers. We use a novel matched worker-firm dataset to estimate earnings losses associated with mass-layoff and closure events in Ireland. Using propensity score matching and difference-in-differences estimators, we find that in the year following displacement, workers who experience a mass-layoff incur losses of 77 per cent compared to losses of 46 per cent for those displaced following a closure, relative to earnings five periods prior to displacement. However, those who are re-employed immediately after displacement suffer much smaller losses of 36 per cent and 19 per cent in the mass-layoff and closure groups respectively. Those displaced in the 2008-2010 group suffer greater earnings losses than those displaced between 2005 and 2007
Identifying Rent Pressures in Your Neighbourhood: A New Model of Irish Regional Rent Indicators
Get PDFSince 2013, researchers in the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) have compiled a hedonic rental index for the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB). The indicator estimates a standardised rental index on a national, Dublin and outside of Dublin basis based on the 950,000 rental properties registered with the RTB. The provision in late 2016 of detailed geographical identifiers has enabled an alternative series of indicators to be estimated. In particular, hedonic rental indicators for 137 local electoral areas (LEAs) are now available on a quarterly basis from Q3 2007 to Q4 2016. By providing a more accurate assessment of regional trends in rental supply and demand, the indicators should enable a more precise implementation of policies in the rental market. They should also serve as a proxy for measuring underlying economic activity in these regions on an ongoing basis
Job Insecurity and Well-being in Rich Democracies
Get PDFPrecarious work (i.e., work that is insecure and uncertain, often low-paying, and in which the risks of work are shifted from employers and the government to workers) has emerged as a serious concern for individuals and families and underlies many of the insecurities that have fuelled recent populist political movements. The impacts of precarious work differ among countries depending on their labour market and welfare system institutions, laws and policies, and cultural factors. This article examines how people in six advanced industrial countries representing different welfare and employment regimes – Denmark, Germany, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States – differ both in their experience of precarious work and in outcomes of precarious work such as job and economic insecurity, entry into the labour force, and subjective well-being. It also suggests a new social and political contract needed to address precarious work and its consequences
Autoimmune Encephalitis: Pathophysiology, Diagnosis and Treatment
Get PDFAutoimmune encephalitis is a family of similar neuropsychiatric diseases presenting with a range of symptoms including subacute dysfunction in memory, decreased cognition, psychosis, refractory seizures, and encephalomyelopathy. During the initial investigation, infectious and medical causes of encephalitis must be ruled out and autoimmune aetiologies explored. Patients will often have a characteristic clinical history and findings, CSF pleocytosis, MRI T2-FLAIR, especially in temporal lobes and limbic system, and EEG changes. Specific autoantibodies can be detected using commercial laboratory tests with high sensitivity and specificity. The diseases can largely be broken down into group I encephalitides with autoantibodies against intracellular synaptic proteins, and group II encephalitides with autoantibodies against neuronal surface proteins. When a diagnosis is suspected, patients should receive first-line steroids and IVIG. If this fails, second-line immunotherapies rituximab and cyclophosphamide are recommended. The majority of autoimmune encephalitides have an association with various tumours and are therefore paraneoplastic syndromes in many patients. Comprehensive screening for cancer should be carried out in all patients, focusing on the specific cancer association, and appropriate cancer treatment can help ease neurological symptoms. Outcomes vary by disease and recovery is usually slow. This is a relatively newly recognised disease and new research is vital to increase recognition and form treatment strategies to best deal with this underdiagnosed condition. This is a review of the literature on the pathophysiology, diagnosis and treatment of autoimmune encephalitis
The Base of Party Political Support in Ireland: A New Approach
Get PDFParty politics in Ireland has been characterised as politics without a social base. This paper calculates political concentration indices for party support in Ireland showing how support for a particular party is concentrated according to identifiable dimensions such as income, education and age. Using data from the European Social Survey, these indices are calculated with respect to elections in 2002, 2007 and 2011. There is evidence of a clear social base emerging after the 2011 election with support for the Fine Gael party concentrated amongst the older, richer and more educated, while support for Sinn Féin is concentrated amongst the younger, lower income and less educated. Preliminary data from the 2016 election are consistent with these developments
The Precarious Position of Drug Education Workers in Ireland
Get PDFThis article examines the position of drug education workers who deliver drug education in non-formal education settings to children and young people in Ireland. Employing secondary data and document analysis, the paper analyses three national drug strategies and the annual reports of 21 local and regional Drug and Alcohol Task Forces (DATFs), in order to determine the prominence of drug education workers within the statutory response to illicit drug use in Irish society. Drug education has been on the Irish Government agenda since the 1970s; however, drug education continues to remain a small field in Ireland, underfunded and without any national representative voice. This paper argues that drug education in Ireland is becoming subsumed into the formal education sector and positioned primarily within the remit of teachers of Social, Personal and Health Education (SPHE). Drug education workers who provide educational programmes in non-formal education settings are unacknowledged in Ireland’s most recent national drug strategy and this poses a risk to education programmes that take place in non-formal settings, and diminishes the role of youth and community services/organisations in abating illicit drug use at local and community levels