Search results for: FLAC

By Larry Donnelly. "PUBLIC INTEREST law . . . what's that, an oxymoron?" So remarked broadcaster and Irish Times columnist Vincent Browne at a Dublin conference held by the Public Interest Law Alliance (Pila) last April. We in Pila, and in our parent organisation the…

By Noeline Blackwell (FLAC/PILA)Earlier this year a steering committee secured funding to establish a law centre for children in Ireland and to fund its operation for its first two years.There are similar law centres around the world – and as close to home as the Children’s…

The Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC), acting on behalf of Dr. Lydia Foy, successfully challenged the Irish Government's refusal to allow transgendered people to alter their birth certificates to accurately reflect their new identities. Learn more at http://atlanticphilanthropies.org/design/atlantic/flash/annualreport/index.html The Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC), acting…

FLAC is an Atlantic grantee. Figures from the Legal Aid Board released to the Irish Examiner show, in some parts of the country, people are waiting for six months or more. While numbers and waiting lists varied from centre to centre, black spots included Galway,…

This report chronicles Lydia Foy’s long legal struggle in Ireland to be officially recognized as a woman—an effort that not only ended in victory for her but that led to a fundamental change in Irish law and how society views gender and identity. Foy’s story…

“Oh, I really feel we’ve been led up the garden path…We are the people that worked.  We put this country on its feet, and we’re the people that are being hit every which way.” - Diane, age 81, in Dublin, Ireland Across many of the geographies…

For many around the world, Ireland in the last ten years or so has represented two things: first, a strong voice for human rights and justice, from Presidents like Mary Robinson to prominent private citizens like Bono. And second, a powerful economic success story: the…

by CAROL COULTER, Legal Affairs Editor Minister for Social Protection Joan Burton will publish legislation in the next year to provide for recognition of the acquired gender of transgender people. Ms Burton announced her plan when she published the report of an inter-departmental Gender Recognition…

Laws provide the skeletal frame of a social order but while laws in theory and by tradition serve the cause of justice, they can easily be, and often are, used to reinforce a repressive regime. Here James A. Goldston and Martin O’Brien reflect on the…

This collection of short case studies and briefs provides insights into how Atlantic grantees used the law to secure social change in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Drawn from a longer report summarized here, the case studies and briefs cover work of Atlantic’s…