Search results for: legal support

By Kieran Rose, Chair of GLEN, the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network“I think same-sex couples should be able to get married” – these ten simple words spoken by US President Barack Obama last Wednesday have reverberated around the world and provided a watershed moment in the…

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. In a landmark case, the High Court formally declared in February…

I returned this weekend from an extended visit to South Africa, where Atlantic has long been engaged in supporting organisations and leaders working on human rights, reconciliation and health issues. Ordinarily in a column, I try to drill down on some particular aspect of our…

by JASON MICHAEL, OLIVIA KELLY and EITHNE DONNELLAN The Minister for Health today published the long-awaited Nursing Homes Support Scheme Bill 2008 amid criticism from Opposition parties and Age Action. The Bill published by Mary Harney underpins the fair deal nursing home funding scheme and…

SAOIRSE BRADYThu, Feb 07, 2013Opinion: With a national unemployment rate of 14.6 per cent - the fourth highest in the EU - it is no surprise that more people are turning to the social welfare system for basic assistance.It is also unsurprising that, with little or…

By Conall Ó FáthartaThe Social Welfare appeals system, which can force people to battle for years for emergency payments, needs to be radically overhauled, it has been claimed.Last year, the average time to process appeals by the Appeals Office was more than 32 weeks. The department…

 Night and a Day in QueenstownPosted by Gara LaMarche  | 18 March 2011, South AfricaAs Jack has chronicled, we arrived in Queenstown, the final leg of our journey in the Eastern Cape, in the dark, around 7 p.m.  This was a problem for two reasons.  First, we’d…

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…

When I arrived in Austin, Texas, the day after Labor Day in 1984 to take up my post as Executive Director of the Texas state branch of the American Civil Liberties Union, a 30-year old Yankee who’d never set foot in the state before my…

Helping vulnerable and disadvantaged people to make lasting changes in their living conditions is at the core of Atlantic’s mission, and in every country in which we work there is significant and sometimes – as in the United States – growing inequality. The persistence of…