Raise the Hammer

Thanks for the comments councilwatch. I'm not sure what a lepricorn is either. Spelling aside, I think the gist (or is it jist...?)of what you are saying is that Ireland has fudged it's poverty numbers and the income divide is as great as ever. I think that is probably somewhat true, however I have read several articles which provide concrete numbers on numbers of low income workers now in training, off of welfare, average wage increases, and so on. I think there has been some credible improvement.

But your observations also tell a different story, in that poverty, and income disparity, is clearly still a big problem.

I didn't mean to imply that Ireland's poverty trap has been fixed. The point of the blog was mainly to draw a link between immoral social issues like poverty and the notion of a nation at 'peace'

I stand by my assertion that an Ireland without the Celtic Tiger, would not be an Ireland with peace. And a nation that does not address the scurge of poverty, can never be at peace with itself.

Ted - I agree with your comment about income disparity. This is definitely the heart of the issue. After all, if we were all equally poor, we'd have nothing to complain about - right?

There has been all sorts of reasearch conducted to make the links between income disparities and happiness and health. I seem to recall that Japan had the smallest disparity and some of the best health stats, and the US had the worst. I don't think we need research to tell us this though - it's just common sense. What is confusing is why so few countries are prepared to address the issue of income disparity. Why do shareholders allow their CEOs to walk away with such ridiculous amounts of cash? Why do fired or underperforming government beaurocrats (holy crap, my mental spell check is working overtime now...)get golden these handshakes with barely a wimper from the voters? And why do so few governments accept that issues like poverty as part of their moral responsibility to address?

Somehow the world has managed to make the Environment the issue of our time. If only we could find a way to make people stand up and fight poverty with the same tenacity.