Property, Family and the Irish Welfare State

Michelle Norris (2016), Property, Family and the Irish Welfare State , Basingstoke : Palgrave Macmillan , £68.00, pp. 279, hbk.

The starting point of Norris's analysis of the Irish welfare state is the observation that reliance on Esping-Andersen's typology of welfare states based on social security expenditure routinely leads to Ireland being assigned to "liberal welfare regime". However, Norris argues it is not enough to think of the Irish case as simply involving "weak" welfare state development; instead it is necessary to recognise that there is a distinctive Irish story. First, Norris draws on detailed historical analysis to support the argument that from the late nineteenth century Ireland's welfare regime was focused on property redistribution; with the redistribution of income and the provision of services being relegated to a secondary role. In addition, rather than the purpose of welfare policy being to operationalise the "grand bargain" between capital and labour it was intended to support a familist order.

Norris' general explanatory framework is based on the role of power, moral and political legitimacy and efficiency considerations. This focus is employed in relation to a number of different phases of the property welfare regime encompassing establishment, construction, saturation, retrenchment and marketization.

Norris' traces the role of government action in the late...