ESRI Newsletter March 2022

March 31, 2022

Message from the Director:

Last week, the ESRI published the Quarterly Economic Commentary, Spring 2022. With the war in Ukraine dominating headlines and everyone’s daily concerns, it should come as no surprise that this season the publication looked at the impact of the invasion on inflation and supply chains. Issues that were already dominating conversations are now heightened and impacting day-to-day living.

Our first publication of March was Children of migrants in Ireland: how are they faring?, a very useful report with added relevance as Ireland welcomes refugees in the coming days and months. It is a very valuable report which will hopefully shape future policy.

We launched the third paper in the joint research programme between the ESRI and Shared Island unit in the Department of the Taoiseach. An analysis of the primary care systems of Ireland and Northern Ireland examined the primary healthcare systems of Ireland and Northern Ireland and sought to identify what comparable data are currently available on the two healthcare systems. After co-author Sheelah Connolly’s presentation, we had a lively panel discussion with Prof Dermot O’Reilly (Clinical Professor, School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences, Queen's University Belfast), Dr Ann Nolan (Assistant Professor, Public Health & Primary Care, Trinity College Dublin) and Dr Tom Black (Council Chair, British Medical Association, Northern Ireland). You can watch the launch below.

ESRI researchers also presented at two Oireachtas Committees this month. At the beginning of March, Kieran McQuinn and Conor O'Toole addressed the Oireachtas Committee on Budgetary Oversight. On Tuesday, Emer Smyth discussed the future funding of higher education with the Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science.

Of course, COVID still hasn’t gone away and the Behavioural Research Unit continue to break down swathes of data to explain how Ireland behaved the way it did during lockdowns and times of fewer restrictions. You can find the link to their research bulletin Public underweighted risk of COVID transmission when meeting others indoors below.

Regards,