PANEL 5
In recent years in Ireland, there has been an increasing pattern of state resistance and hostility towards the community and voluntary sector and a systematic effort to limit and to minimize advocacy-related actions. One key consequence at a time of change and uncertainty is that public authorities maintained ultimate decision-making control but devolved responsibility to these organizations for the provision and management service provision/delivery while obliging them to move away from advocacy and campaigning and undermining their autonomy and independence.
My paper focuses specifically on recent developments in the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed (INOU). In what ways and to what extent have the social and economic crisis and the implementation of major austerity policies forced it to adopt new trajectories and alliances? Have INOU activists adjusted their expectations and put in place new strategies of action? What have been the implications for its leadership and activists?
