This publication covers all major aspects of social policy in relation to disability in contemporary Ireland. New approaches to policy making, influenced by concepts of rights, partnership and integration, have led to major changes in service provision and legislation affecting people with disabilities. These developments are fully discussed in chapters on education and employment policies, health services, social security, access and independent living, gender, ethnicity, poverty, ageing, the mixed economy of welfare and disability, the emerging rights perspective for disabled people, and the legislation underpinning service provision. The effect of European legislation is fully covered, and comparisons are made with provision in other countries and in Northern Ireland.

A Bit Different: Disability in Ireland brings the reader on a journey exploring the ideas that influence our thinking about people with disabilities. In the year when Ireland ratified the UN Convention on the rights of people with disabilities, A Bit Different answers the question as to why the road to equal rights for people with disabilities is strewn with so many potholes. Its chapters analyse the impact of the Nazi programme to annihilate people with disabilities and create an ‘Aryan race,’ as well as the Irish habit of placing people with perceived differences into closed institutions. Drawing on examples from Germany, Romania, Italy and the US, the book casts a different or alternative light on the Army Deafness cases of the 1970s and the more recent Tuam discovery of unburied babies. Among its ten chapters, the author provides a new look at the rise of the independent living movement in Ireland among people with disabilities themselves and provides a critical appraisal of the increasing State regulation and enforcement of standards of living in residential centres for people with disabilities. Students of Disability Studies will find the first historical timeline of disability policy events over two centuries, especially useful in understanding the history of disability rights in Ireland. The intended readership for this book is among the 600,000 Irish people who describe themselves as having a disability or long-standing health condition, their friends, families, advocates, carers, social care supporters, work colleagues and employers.

This completely updated edition of 'Contemporary Irish Social Policy' gives an overview of the historical development of each policy area and discusses current and future issues in the field.

This 2nd edition of a highly respected textbook offers a comprehensive introduction to Irish social policy. It provides an accessible, critical overview taking account of significant changes over recent years. The book is organised across four key sections: 1: Traces the emergence and development of Irish social policy from its origins to the present 2: Situates the Irish case in the wider context of the politics, ideology and socio-economic factors relevant to the development and reform of welfare states 3: Analyses core social service areas with specific reference to the contemporary Irish context 4: Explores how social policy affects particular groups in Irish society including children, older people, people with disabilities, carers, new immigrant and minority ethnic groups, and LGBT people. Discusses the challenges posed by environmental issues and the importance of a social policy perspective Text boxes used throughout provide policy summaries, definitions of key concepts, along with guides for further reading and discussion. This is a valuable resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students studying Irish social policy and allied subjects.

The focus in this text is on the historical development of Irish social policy, with a discussion of major influences - such as the European Union - on policy formation.

This book provides an international comparative study of the implementation of disability rights law and policy focused on the emerging principles of self-determination and personalisation. It explores how these principles have been enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and how different jurisdictions have implemented them to enable meaningful engagement and participation by persons with disabilities in society. The philosophy of 'active citizenship' underpinning the Convention - that all citizens should (be able to) actively participate in the community - provides the core focal point of this book, which grounds its analysis in exploring how this goal has been imagined and implemented across a range of countries. The case studies examine how different jurisdictions have reformed disability law and policy and reconfigured how support is administered and funded to ensure maximum choice and independence is accorded to people with disabilities.

'Disability and Social Change' will reveal how life has changed for disabled people growing up in Britain over the past 70 years, from the 1940s to the present day. It seeks to provide an in-depth examination of the interplay between individual biography and social context.

Geographies of disability have become a key research priority for many disability scholars and geographers. This edited collection, incorporating the work of leading international disability researchers, seeks to expand the current geographical frame operating within the realm of disability. Providing a critical and comprehensive examination of disability and spatial processes of exclusion and inclusion for disabled people, the book uniquely brings together insights from disability studies, spatial geographies and social policy with the purpose of exploring how spatial factors shape, limit or enhance policy towards, and the experiences of, disabled people. Divided into two parts, the first section explores the key concepts to have emerged within the field of disability geographies, and their relationship to new policy regimes. New and emerging concepts within the field are critically explored for their significance in conceptually framing disability. The second section provides an in-depth examination of disabled people’s experience of changing landscapes within the onset of emerging disability policy regimes. It deals with how the various actors and stakeholders, such as governments, social care agencies, families and disabled people traverse these landscapes under the new conditions laid out by changing policy regimes. Crucially, the chapters examine the lived meaning of changing spatial relations for disabled people. Grounded in recent empirical research, and with a global focus, each of the chapters reveal how social policy domains are challenged or undermined by the spatial realities faced by disabled people, and expands existing understandings of disability. In turn, the book supports readers to grasp future policy directions and processes that enable disabled people's choices, rights and participation. This important work will be invaluable reading for students and researchers involved in disability, geography and social policy.

This is the first book to explore how far disability challenges dominant understandings of rurality, identity, gender and belonging within the rural literature. The book focuses particularly on the ways disabled people give, and are given, meaning and value in relation to ethical rural considerations of place, physical strength, productivity and social reciprocity. A range of different perspectives to the issues of living rurally with a disability inform this work. It includes the lived experience of people with disabilities through the use of life history methodologies, rich qualitative accounts and theoretical perspectives. It goes beyond conventional notions of rurality, grounding its analysis in a range of disability spaces and places and including the work of disability sociologists, geographers, cultural theorists and policy analysts. This interdisciplinary focus reveals the contradictory and competing relations of rurality for disabled people and the resultant impacts and effects upon disabled people and their communities materially, discursively and symbolically. Of interest to all scholars of disability, rural studies, social work and welfare, this book provides a critical intervention into the growing scholarship of rurality that has bypassed the pivotal role of disability in understanding the lived experience of rural landscapes.