ISSUE 87 2020 October working notes facts and analysis of social and economic issues Policies After a Pandemic Confines, Wards and Do We Really Feel Fine? Dungeons: Some Reflections Towards an Irish Green on Crime and Society in New Deal Times of Covid-19 Any Light in Darkness? “Family Hubs”: Lives on Hold A Theological Reflection on Covid-19 Working Notes Facts and analysis of social and economic issues Volume 34, Issue 87, October 2020 Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice 54–72 Gardiner Street Upper, Dublin 1, D01 TX23 Phone: 01 855 6814 Email: [email protected] Web: www.jcfj.ie Editor: Keith Adams Layout: Karl O’Sullivan, Pixelpress.ie Artwork: Shutterstock, iStock Photo, Inner City Helping Homeless, Wikimedia, Unsplash Printed by: Colorman Ireland Design: myahdesigns.com © Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice, 2020 Articles may not be reproduced without permission. The views expressed in articles are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice. The Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice is an agency of the Irish Jesuit Province. The Centre undertakes social analysis and theological reflection in relation to issues of social justice, including housing and homelessness, penal policy, economic ethics and environmental justice. Subscriptions to Working Notes are free and can be established and maintained at www.jcfj.ie. Contributions to the costs of Working Notes or the work of the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice can be made at www.jcfj.ie An archive of Working Notes is available on the website of the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice: www.jcfj.ie Article pitches or submissions are welcome; please direct them to the JCFJ Director, Kevin Hargaden, at [email protected] working notes facts and analysis of social and economic issues Letter from the Director of the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice .................................................................. 2 Editorial ...................................................................................... 3 Keith Adams Confines, Wards and Dungeons: Some Reflections on Crime and Society in Times of Covid-19 ........................... 7 Pieter De Witte & Geertjan Zuijdwegt “Family Hubs”: Lives on Hold ................................................. 15 Rebecca Keatinge Do We Really Feel Fine? Towards an Irish Green New Deal .......................................... 24 Any Light in Darkness? A Theological Reflection on Covid-19 .......................................................... 49 Gerry O’Hanlon SJ Working Notes. Vol. 34, Issue 87, October 2020. 1 Letter from the Director of the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice This is the first letter of introduction I have understood that living the values of the Gospel written for Working Notes, because it goes to meant striving for justice, discussion began press just a few weeks after I have been made about a social research centre that would not Director of the Jesuit Centre for Faith and settle for ivory-tower theorising. Justice. I received this baton from the out-going Director, John Guiney SJ, in August. John has Those involved in that early experiment did not been at the helm for almost a decade and felt imagine that their work would bear fruit well that the time was now right, as we approach into the next century. Now, on the cusp of the the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the Centre’s fifth decade of research and activism, Centre, to leave it in our hands. the intention to integrate social questions and spiritual practices persists. We hope that can As a team, we thank John for all the years he be glimpsed in this issue in which Keith Adams, has served in that role. The Centre has gone as editor, has curated a diverse range of essays through great change under his leadership and to add insight to each of the areas the Centre those who have followed our work cannot fail to is called to address: penal policy, environmental have noticed the advances that have been made. care, economic ethics, the housing and homelessness crisis, and theological reflection. There is something fitting about this handover Each, in its own way, contributes to the occurring in the summer months of 2020. emerging and vital conversation about policies Everything appears to be in transition. But for after the pandemic. one of the gifts John has left us is a very clear sense of our identity and our reason for being. The pandemic is not yet ended. The work to The Centre arose initially out of conversations build policies that will leave a more just society led by Frank Sammon SJ and John Sweeney in its wake has already begun. about how to adapt to the modern world Dr Kevin Hargaden, JCFJ Director with a faith that was authentic. Inspired by a global movement within the Jesuits which 2 Working Notes. Vol. 34, Issue 87, October 2020. Editorial A TRANSFORMED CONTEXT were just the ways things were – the proverbial cost of doing business — were, in the midst of In March, our world crawled to a halt in ways a pandemic, exposed by an unyielding light. which were previously unimaginable. The slow emergence and then rapid proliferation of the From the beginning of Ireland’s response, coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 cast doubt on many the inadequacies of social provision were strongly held certainties and loosened societal obvious and the source of much societal touchstones. Much is still uncertain as we fear. Our public hospitals, with some of the attempt to restart our day-to-day lives under lowest number of intensive care beds in the rules of social distancing, wrestle with the Europe, and the wider care system, teetered public health and economic trade-offs, or await on the precipice of being overwhelmed. a vaccine which may ultimately fail to meet our At a time when a secure home or suitable growing expectations. As we look to the future, accommodation was central to responding our vision is more opaque than usual. to virus transmission, 10,000 adults and children were homeless and in emergency Yet, while we may only see forwards dimly, accommodation. Institutions such as prisons Covid-19 has had a sharpening effect as we and direct provision centres were painfully look backwards. Like the optician slotting overcrowded. For the vulnerable and those the correct lens in front of our eye, clarity is on the periphery of society — the homeless, swift as the corners recede and the blurriness the imprisoned, and the refugee — space is a dissipates. Little within our society has remained luxury society does not afford them. As the untouched by the pandemic. Suddenly, refrain of “keep your distance” rang in our economic, social and penal policies, which made ears, many who wanted to, simply could not. sense within the globalised neoliberal story we shared, were revealed as woefully inadequate, Positive steps were taken during the early and in many cases, lethal. Past decisions by response. People recently unemployed or politicians and policymakers which we assumed furloughed had their income maintained on Working Notes. Vol. 34, Issue 87, October 2020. 3 Photo by Noah Berger/AP/Shutterstock (10748563h) an almost universal basis. An eviction ban, MAPPING THE NEW POLICY SPACES denied for years as unconstitutional, ensured many people could remain in their rented Any aspect of social, economic or welfare policy could be examined in great detail and homes. Prison numbers were reduced through much has already been written. We will not structured temporary release. Though much seek to replicate this more granular and key needed interventions, these were fleeting and work. Yet stepping back for a moment to more revealing of the previous low levels of consider a wider sweep of events, common income support, tenant protections, and non- threads emerge demanding a coherent custodial sanctions. response. In this issue of Working Notes, Policies After a Pandemic, we have drawn Some of what was previously hidden was together a selection of four carefully revealed in the starkest ways. Absence of considered essays to attempt this more mandatory sick pay and dubious contractual integrative work. obligations forced many precarious workers, typically migrants, to turn up for work in For the first time, the essays will now be meat processing plants, day in and day out. available online as audio files.1 This forms part As regional lockdowns occurred due largely of the Centre’s commitments to walk with the to rising infection rates in meat plants and marginalised, by making our materials available direct provision centres, the overlap of people for those who do not have the capacity to read who worked in the former and lived in the or are visually impaired, and to keep developing latter became visible. At the centre of this Working Notes and its accompanying features. viral Venn diagram, we saw for the first time, If you are tired of staring at a screen or would people who moved to Ireland seeking refuge just prefer to listen to our social analysis, I and a better life, who have instead received heartily recommend this new addition to our website. institutionalisation and labour exploitation. May we continue to see clearly what lies beneath the lustre of Irish society! 1. Audio files can be streamed at: https://soundcloud.com/jcfj 4 Working Notes. Vol. 34, Issue 87, October 2020. In “Confines, Wards and Dungeons”, Pieter De a diagnosis of our political impasse, we present Witte and Geertjan Zuijdwegt, theologians at a roadmap to a reorganisation of society and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium the economy which does not separate our and prison chaplains, tease apart how lockdown care for the environment with our care for our and prison have been compared and contrasted neighbour. Deliberative democracy with diverse by considering the social meaning of detention. and disagreeing people is concretely proposed As the similarities start to readily disintegrate, as a method to forge a genuinely new politics.