THE LEADING figures behind Cori Justice have founded a new advocacy and social analysis organisation, Social Justice Ireland.
Fr Seán Healy said Social Justice Ireland, which he has founded with Sr Brigid Reynolds, would receive no funding from the Catholic Church and would take over the programmes and advocacy projects that until now had been run by Cori Justice.
He said it would, like Cori Justice, work “to build a just society where human rights are respected, human dignity protected, human development is facilitated and the environment is respected and protected”.
Cori Justice, with Fr Healy and Sr Reynolds at the helm, had a long reputation for providing social analysis of government projects and budgets and their impact on the poorest people in society.
In this work, said Fr Healy yesterday, the organisation had been working increasingly with lay individuals and organisations, as well as religious ones. “We have been wondering for some time how best to reflect that reality, and this restructuring will allow lay organisations to join this new organisation.” This had not been possible before with Cori Justice.
He said Social Justice Ireland would be “completely independent” have a board that would now include lay people.
While Cori Justice had always made the voices of those lay groups it worked with heard, he said the move would enable the organisation to “better reflect the reality of what we have been doing for a long time anyway”.
Asked how the new group would be funded given that it would not receive church funding, he said it was in the process of applying for charity status and hoped people and groups would “want to support us”.
“A lot of people, groups and organisations, benefit from our analyses and advocacy, and we’ll see how it goes.”
Social Justice Ireland would “in time” list groups and people supporting it, but Fr Healy would not do so yesterday.
The organisation has moved from the Donnybrook, Dublin premises Cori Justice had occupied, and is now based in Sandyford, Dublin.
It also remains “rooted in Catholic social thought” said Fr Healy. “We don’t hide that.”
Its website includes opinion pieces about the "stark choice" facing the Government in framing Budget 2010, a copy of Fr Healy's and Sr Reynolds's submission to the Commission on Taxation, and an announcement about a new encyclical letter from Pope Benedict XVI, Charity in Truth, "calling for a new business order governed by ethics and the common good".
The Social Justice Ireland website is socialjustice.ie
