Round table: An action plan for adequate income
7 October 2014, 9.30 to 1.15
in the European Parliament Information Office in Ireland, Molesworth Street, Dublin
Agenda
Chairperson: Hugh Frazer
9.30 / Tea, coffee, registration9.45 / Welcome: Hugh Frazer
10.00 / Minimum Income in Ireland Audry Deane, Project Advisor
10.15 / Minimum Income – International example Katherine Duffy, EAPN UK
10.30 / Proposed Roadmap to an adequate Minimum Income Scheme in Ireland
· Context Micheál Collins, NERI
· Content Robin Hanan, EAPN Ireland
11.00 / Tea/coffee
11.15 / Workshops discussing
1. How much is enough? Defining an adequate minimum income
2. What needs to change? Delivering an adequate minimum income
3. How do we achieve change?
Feedback
12.30 / A European Initiative on Minimum Income
Presentation of the European Minimum Income Roadmap,
Anne Van Lanker, Project coordinator, EMIN Europe project
12.45 / Discussion of the European Roadmap
1.10 / Closing
1.15 / LUNCH
Speakers
Anne Van Lanker is the policy coordinator of the European Minimum Income Network (EMIN) Project. She is also the network builder for the European reference budgets project. Anne served for 15 years in the European Parliament for the S&D (Socialist) Group, working on social policy, employment, equal opportunities and the fight against poverty and social exclusion. In that capacity, she was also a member of the Convention for a European Constitution, carefully watching the social ambitions of Europe. She is Belgian, a sociologist and happy grand-mother of 5 lovely grand-children.
Audry Deane is Project Advisor to the Irish Minimum Income Network. She has been working as an advocate for change in the community and voluntary sector since 1995, working firstly with the NWCI working on campaigns and health policy and then with St Vincent de Paul Social Justice & Policy working in the areas of education, health and social welfare. She also works as an independent advisor to a range of organisations and is speaking in that capacity today.
Hugh Frazer is an independent expert on social inclusion policy and practice. He is currently coordinator of the EU’s European Social Policy Network. He is also an adjunct professor in the Department of Applied Social Studies, Maynooth University. He is a former director of the Combat Poverty Agency and the Northern Ireland Voluntary Trust. He has written extensively about the EU’s social inclusion process and on issues of poverty, including minimum income schemes.
Katherine Duffy, EAPN UK, trained as an economist and spent her working life as an academic in a University Business School – although she has a PhD in ‘combating poverty and social exclusion in Europe’. Her long term research and advocacy interest has been in combating poverty and social exclusion. She worked for three years as UK evaluator for the EU “Poverty 3” action programme and for two years I was Director of Research for the Council of Europe Human Dignity and Social Exclusion initiative. She has always volunteered, both in her neighbourhood and in wider networks. For the last twenty years she have worked in a voluntary capacity for the European Anti-Poverty Network, including chairing the main European policy group of representatives from EU Member States, some non-member European states and affiliated European NGOs. She also chaired the group of UK NGOs who worked with Government on the National Action Plans on Social Inclusion. She is a Child Poverty Commissioner for Leicester City Council.
Micheál Collins is Senior Research Officer at the Nevin Economic Research Institute (NERI). His research interests are in the areas of income distribution, taxation, economic evaluation and public policy. Prior to joining NERI he was Assistant Professor of Economics at Trinity College Dublin. He is vice-chairman of the Irish Social Policy Association (ISPA) and a former chairman of the Regional Studies Association (RSA) of Ireland. He was a member of the Commission on Taxation (2008-2009) and served as chairman of the Commission subgroup on Tax Expenditures/Tax Breaks. In 2011 he was appointed a member of the Government Advisory Group on Tax and Social Welfare (AGTSW). Micheál is a native of Ennis in Co. Clare and a graduate of NUI Galway (BA), UCC (MA Econ) and the University of Dublin, Trinity College (PhD). He is a fellow of the Regional Studies Association (FRSA).
Robin Hanan is Coordinator of the Irish Minimum Income Network and Director of EAPN (European Anti Poverty Network) Ireland. He has previously worked as CEO of the Irish Refugee council and of Comhlámh. He has chaired the Europe-wide policy groups of both the EAPN and the Development NGOs (CONGOOD). He previously worked as a civil servant and lectured on Ireland in Europe for Quinn Business School, UCD.