Abstract
This excellent book by Mairéad Considine and Fiona Dukelow joins the wonderful Irish Social Services by John Curry (4th edition published in 2003) and the comprehensive UCD Press series, which began with Irish Social Policy in Context and its companion Contemporary Irish Social Policy in 1999 (a second edition of the latter was published in 2005). This book by Considine and Dukelow is welcome on a number of grounds. It is welcome because the general social policy readers referred to above have become dated. Although they are still very useful, it is good to have current material available to students. It is unfortunate for those who write social policy texts that the rapidly evolving nature of the subject means their work becomes dated very quickly. The second reason to welcome the book is its user friendly structure and presentation. Finally, the book covers an expansive range of key social policy issues in one volume...