Paper presented to a Dochas Participation seminar on 16 April 2015. I am speaking to you today because I have just spent the last three years running a project called The Advocacy Initiative; a broad community and voluntary sector project aimed at examining and better understanding the advocacy of C&V organisations. The Initiative first emerged in 2008, so its history parallels the turmoil of the last six years. It was.. Read More

This week I was delighted to be invited to give a short input at a seminar launching Joe Larragy’s new book on the community and voluntary pillar, Asymmetric Engagement. One of a number of contributors we were asked to consider the question ‘Time for a new Social Contract?’. My presentation drew on the findings of The Advocacy Initiative. The question of whether we need a new social contract sent me.. Read More

I felt the need to put the following statement from Irish Aid’s policy on civil society, beside a sample service level agreement which the HSE signs with those organisations it funds. “In the past, civil society organisations often established parallel service delivery functions and tried to replace the role of the state in service delivery. The limitations of this approach are now widely recognised and civil society organisations now tend to seek a complementary.. Read More

This is the text of an editorial I published in The Examiner on 7 June 2013, with my Advocacy Initiative hat on. ON the surface it may seem natural that any government would be hesitant to fund criticism of its own policies. Is this not simply a case of an organisation in receipt of state funds biting the hand that feeds it? At first glance the argument against state funding.. Read More

Wrote a guest blog for Dochas on the arguments for global equality using material prepared for a class presentation. Feels a bit inadequate, its a summary really, and I am not sure that each of the arguments is really for an equality based response to global injustice. Though I am very interested in the comments, one so far, I wonder if there will be others?

7istooyoung is a dynamic, energetic and apparently very effective campaign, focused on protecting lone parents from the worst excesses of the austerity Budget 2012. Despite the remarkably unpopular subject area (lets face it lone parents are not sick children or puppies), the three key organisations involved have not only generated public sympathy, but also political willingness, where none had existed.  No mean feat. And what has this got to do with.. Read More