The structural failure of Irish economic development and employment policy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33178/ijpp.2.1.3Abstract
This article takes the Irish recession since 2008 and the need to introduce radically new employment polices as its ultimate goal. However, in arriving at these in the last section of the article, there is a need to first trace the historical development of economic development and employment policy. This is necessary to test whether current responses to unemployment, which are typically neo-liberal and serve specific ideologies and sectional interests in Irish society, have been continuous since independence; and to identify where breaks may have occurred and where continuities remain. Running through this, critical questions relate to whose interests have been served by dominant economic policy from independence to the present day. In learning lessons from this process, we can then come to conclusions as to what policy prescriptions are needed to reduce unemployment and put Ireland on a more state responsive, fairer and sustainable economic development and employment policy path from 2010 onwards.References
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