The Introduction introduces the Irish District Court as an institution of incomprehensible, organised chaos, where formality and commonality collide. It promises to demystify the language and procedure of the court, and to focus on the changes wrought by immigration and the limited English proficient defendant. It introduces the mutual confusion created by language barriers and interpreters, and offers a brief historical look at language and interpreting in Irish courts. Finally, it provides an overview of what each of the chapters in the book will deal with.

On 11 June 2004, the Irish electorate voted on the 'Twenty-seventh Amendment of the Constitution Bill' or, as it is more generally known, the Citizenship Referendum. This chapter presents Ireland's shift in emphasis regarding the meaning of citizenship and how it was expressed in the specific wording of the Constitution and in wider discourses of national identity and civil rights. In order to grasp the breadth of the issues involved, the chapter describes the key concepts of citizenship, 'race' and racialisation, and the state. It suggests that the Citizenship Act (2005) racialised Irish nationality. That is, it gave primary preference to bloodlines as its principal criterion for belonging, thus dividing Irish children into two categories with differential access to the rights and responsibilities accruing to citizens. They are Irish children and 'Irish-born children' ('IBC').

This chapter makes the point that the concept of “ecology” extends itself well beyond a study of projects of conservation. The study of environmental sustainability requires us to come to terms with the more complex and ethically sound and ecologically constituted ways of thinking that characterize many indigenous and non-western ways of thinking. Major changes in the relationships of humans to the earth require universities to play significant roles in this transformation of thought. The author makes the controversial point that universities must rethink what they do. Indigenous Knowledge systems (IKS) in the curriculum of higher education posit philosophical, ethical, moral and metaphysical challenges to all areas of current academic systems of thought as well as the practices that result. This chapter recounts the history of how universities have arrived at such ungrounded practice.

Mental health services include a broad range of services, from home and community-based facilities such as day hospitals and out-patient facilities to acute care units and residential care services. This chapter presents a broad overview of key economic issues facing the provision of such services in Ireland. The key issues include: the nature and extent of mental illnesses in Ireland; the resources spent on care provided to people with mental illnesses; and the economic cost of mental illness in Ireland. The chapter reviews some examples of economic evaluation of mental health interventions in Ireland and a contingent valuation study that estimates the willingness to pay for a mental health programme. An example of an economic evaluation in the mental health area concerned the Suicide Crisis Awareness Nurse (SCAN) service that was introduced in two catchment areas, Cluain Mhuire in Dublin and Wexford.

Given that thus far higher education (HE) has contributed to the generation of knowledge and actions that have led to the crisis situation we are currently experiencing, we must start to reconceptualise our understanding of higher education institutions (HEIs) in a way that will bring about sustainable development in society. In short, to stop being part of the problem, and become part of the solution. The need to give sustainable development meaning in a specific context involving multiple stakeholders makes these concepts attractive from an educational perspective as they require joint meaning-making, co-creation of new knowledge, collaborative learning and, indeed, critiquing. The aim of this chapter is to explore the challenges posed by (un)sustainability to HEIs, and to discuss the barriers that prevent them from finding a response, and to suggest ways to overcoming these difficulties.

Higher education has provided little leadership and few conceptual tools to assist us to better understand our place, among others, in leading the world towards a more sustainable future. We continue to educate society in ways oblivious to the mounting crisis of unsustainability (Orr 1992). Instead, our universities reinforce human exceptionalism in environmental matters with a diet of managerialism, funding demands, competitive ratings predicated on institutional instrumentalism, and path-dependent curricula based on a ‘knowing about’ pedagogy rather than one that enhances capability in ‘being-for’. This approach has proven spectacularly disastrous in dealing with critical concerns of the planet. This chapter suggests an alternative curriculum to transform our institutions of higher education

Same-sex marriage disrupts the gendering of marriage and so threatens the familiar social and economic order. However, the twenty-first century has witnessed a major increase in public support for marriage rights for same-sex couples. This chapter traces how an apparently isolated court case grew into a new social movement. It focuses on the 2004 High Court case taken by Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan (the KAL case) for legal recognition of their marriage as a same-sex couple, which had taken place a year previously in Canada. The chapter explains the origins of the campaign for full marriage rights for same-sex couples by MarriagEquality, the advocacy organisation that emerged from the KAL case. It presents an alternative route towards the same goal that was adopted by the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN). The KAL case provides a platform to explore the hegemonic status of (heterosexual) marriage in Irish society.

This chapter suggests the need for strategizing environmental engagement within our institutions of higher education and provides an example of such measurement in Chiapas, Mexico. The inclusion of organizational and financial goals, as well as, provision of an organizational structure to accommodate complex environmental issues is discussed.