A completely updated and revised edition of this comprehensive review of the range of social policy provision in Ireland – education, income maintenance, employment, housing and health – together with chapters relating to different categories of consumers of services including children, people with disabilities, older people, Travellers, refugees and asylum seekers. Key areas of policy development concerning youth, drugs and the criminal justice system are also examined. Each chapter is complete in itself, providing description and analysis of current policy, an overview of its historical development and discussion of current and future issues in the field. A table of the main policy developments and a list of further reading are given at the end of each chapter. The contributors include academics, researchers and managers of services in the public and voluntary sectors. Intended especially as a textbook for students of social policy, it is also a basic reference book for anyone wishing to gain an understanding of current social policy provision in Ireland.Contemporary Irish Social Policy is a companion volume to Irish Social Policy in Context (1999), which discusses the historical development of social policy in Ireland and analyses the policy-making process. Other titles in UCD Press’s series of social policy textbooks are Disability and Social Policy in Ireland (2003), Theorising Irish Social Policy (2004) and Mental Health and Social Policy in Ireland (forthcoming 2005).