Michael Tobin

📚 Read Voluntary Sector Review 16(3), @brisunipress.bsky.social, with articles on volunteering during COVID-19, non-profit worker wellbeing, care ethics & leadership, digital emotional labour, homelessness services and more.

Browse the issue: bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journal...

Usages of ‘soft’ EU labour law: the implementation of the Minimum Wage Directive - Sven Schreurs, 2025 Transposition of the much-debated EU Directive on adequate minimum wages, adopted in October 2022, was due by November 2024. This article examines how the Minim...

Now out in Transfer (@etui.bsky.social): my article on the implementation of the minimum wage directive.

In October 2022, the EU adopted this landmark piece of social policy to ensure fair pay and strengthen collective bargaining. What impact has it had so far?

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Welfare cuts have fuelled rise of far right and populism, top UN expert says Exclusive: Poverty rapporteur says governments must rethink welfare state as essential to fabric of society

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

🚨 #CfP reminder!
Join us in Oxford (13 Jan 2026) for
‘Social Policy in Europe: Diverse Contexts, Shared Challenges’

Exploring European #SocialPolicy?
We welcome papers using diverse methods and perspectives on urgent and evolving issues in the field 🌍

#EUSocialPolicy #PolicyStudies #PSA2026

Groundbreaking report reveals powerful link between poverty and the climate crisis Nearly 80 per cent of the world’s poor – 887 million people – live in regions that are exposed to extreme heat, flooding and other climate hazards, highlighting the urgent need for global action to ad...

"Poverty is no longer a standalone socio-economic issue. Instead, poverty is compounded by and interlinked with the increasingly dramatic effects of the climate emergency," @UNDP Acting Administrator Haoliang Xu.

news.un.org/en/story/2025/…news.un.org/en/story/202...25

Why the EU is a geopolitical power: wartime enlargement, integration, and reform The European Union is undergoing strategic redefinition through wartime conditions and shifting global orders, seeking to position itself as a geopolitical power. Enlargement and deeper integration...

The EU is a geopolitical actor.

In a new article, just published in the @jeppjournal.bsky.social, I introduce the SI 𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦 𝘌𝘯𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘨𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵, 𝘐𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘙𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘮.

I argue for a framework of 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐠𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬: the EU’s way of wielding power.

👉 Read here: bit.ly/4mvKnh6

Manchán 🕯️

Living Wage 2025/2026 increases to €15.40.

Social progress at the expense of economic equality? New data on left parties' equality preferences ALEXANDER HORN, K. JONATHAN KLÜSER, MARTIN HASELMAYER

📘 64.4

@legalmusings.bsky.social, @klueserthan.bsky.social & M.Haselmayer address how left‑wing parties have prioritised social progress over economic equality 💱 in recent decades.

#PoliSky #OA

Without a doubt the best in the show.

You would need to update lecture slides weekly with the speed of change!

The Job Market Is Hell Young people are using ChatGPT to write their applications; HR is using AI to read them; no one is getting hired.

www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Older renters face rising costs on slim pensions, while the Government is silent on the issue Lorcan Sirr: How are people with disposable income of €20,067 to afford the average rent of €17,280?

www.irishtimes.com/opinion/2025...

When in Inistoige.

Knowledge production and learning in housing struggles - SN Social Sciences This article examines the impact of advocacy for non-housing issues and its spillover onto housing movements. Adopting the viewpoint that activism is a social practice that generates knowledge, this s...

Just published #OpenAccess:

"Knowledge production and learning in housing struggles"

I examine how knowledge is produced and learned within housing struggles, particularly how non-housing issues spill over into housing movements.

Full paper here 👉 doi.org/10.1007/s435...

Leinster are URC champions!

Waterford Crystal site set for €130m transformation | WLRFM.com The former Waterford Crystal manufacturing site is to be transformed to form part of the country’s first university enterprise quarter.

The former Waterford Crystal manufacturing site is to be transformed to form part of the country’s first co-located university enterprise quarter in a €130 million initiative.

@setupresident.bsky.social

www.wlrfm.com/news/waterfo...

Politics and Administrative Justice Politics and Administrative Justice - Postliberalism, Street-Level Bureaucracy and the Reawakening of Democratic Citizenship; This book argues there is urgent need for a radical reassessment of the way...

“Nick O’Brien has made a thought-provoking contribution to the literature on administrative justice, powerfully arguing that democratic participation should be at the core of official responses to citizen grievances.” - Paul Daly, University of Ottawa

Thanks Gerry.

Happy to finish my first marathon yesterday alongside my brother. Love the little Oscar statuettes from my boys 🤗

Families' wealth in 1427 predicts their wealth in 2011.

Latest News & Events | TASC - Think-tank for Action on Social Change

Looking forward to attending this lecture this evening.

www.tasc.ie/news/2025/04...

Gaza has been failed by silence and impunity Gaza is on the brink of famine. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a multistakeholder global initiative aimed at enhancing food security and nutrition analysis, reports that the entire...

Gaza has been failed by silence and impunity - The Lancet www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

🚨 New study reveals that when used to summarize scientific research, generative AI is nearly five times less accurate than humans.

Many haven't realized, but Gen AI's accuracy problem is worse than initially thought.

Researchers from SETU Carlow and Waterford at the Sociological Association of Ireland Annual Conference 2025 at UCC
#SAIcon25 #SociologyIreland
@setu-research.bsky.social #SETU #SETUResearch

Thanks Antoinette and ditto!

Really enjoyed the SAI annual conference. Fantastic papers and discussions. @sociologyireland.bsky.social

'Grace' report: Questions after unprecedented statement Two weeks on from the publication of the near decade-long Farrelly commission investigation into the 'Grace' foster home abuse case, and questions are still being asked about its findings, writes Fiac...

Two weeks on from the publication of the near decade-long Farrelly commission investigation into the 'Grace' foster home abuse case, and questions are still being asked about its findings, writes Fiachra Ó Cionnaith

Prison overcrowding 'extremely concerning', says IPRT The prison population across Ireland exceeds 5,000 in a system with bed capacity for over 4,600, leaving the Irish Prison Service operating at 14% over capacity.

The prison population across Ireland exceeds 5,000 in a system with bed capacity for over 4,600, leaving the Irish Prison Service operating at 14% over capacity