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The focus of this article is on the Proposed Council Directive on Equal Treatment which has been in the pipeline since 2008 but has been plagued by concerns over subsidiarity and legal certainty. The delay in implementing this proposal is having a detrimental impact on the protection of non-discrimination in the EU. The article is concerned primarily with the age ground and the particular obstacles, omissions and inconsistencies in the proposal which may hamper its eventual implementation. Analysis is made of obstacles in the context of financial services (including insurance and banking), omissions with respect to multiple and intersectional discrimination, exclusions and artificial intelligence and inconsistencies such as justifying only preferential differences in treatment on grounds of age, a departure from other anti-discrimination law within the EU. Identifying solutions to these impasses, this article hopes to play a small role in overcoming these challenges and carving a clear path for the implementation of the proposed Directive.

The experience of Roman law in legal education in England and Wales may serve as a cautionary tale for EU law post-Brexit. Similarly, past debates as to the position of Roman law in the curriculum may also be instructive in the EU law context. After tracing the history of the teaching of Roman law in England and Wales, this article posits first that the factors that appear to have caused the decline of Roman law could apply equally in the context of EU law. Secondly, based on both pragmatic and liberal education arguments that have historically been proffered for the study of Roman law, it advances arguments for the retention of a compulsory stand-alone EU law module in England and Wales after Brexit. To this end, the paper contends that the arguments for the retention of EU law in legal education are more robust than those asserted traditionally in favour of Roman law.

In 2008, Ireland faced an economic crisis without parallel in its recent history. To address this crisis, a large programme of financial assistance was obtained from the European Union and the IMF, and the Irish government set about the process of reforming the structure and financing of social security benefits and the healthcare system to ameliorate the effects of the crisis. While much can be said about the legislative reforms, their rationale, necessity, and impact, this chapter addresses the legacy of the crisis on the Irish constitutional system and, particularly, on the Irish constitutional protection of social rights (or lack thereof). Following an analysis of the limited case law surrounding the reforms imposed during the economic crisis, it is contended that the economic crisis had the effect of highlighting the lack of explicit constitutional protection of social rights, a deficiency which in turn created an opportunity for the utilisation of other existing and emerging constitutional rights. While the future of social rights in the Irish Constitution is still unclear, it is evident that the economic crisis has left an indelible mark on the Irish constitutional landscape.

This article assesses the effectiveness of UK age discrimination law in protecting older workers from claims that such workers are less productive and perform more poorly than younger workers. The article assesses employer perceptions and the incompatibility of such perceptions with existing research and the current interpretation of age discrimination law by the CJEU and the Supreme Court which accords with such research. The effectiveness of age discrimination law in practice is assessed through an analysis of existing compensation reduction rules. The article concludes that the existing rules which allow for a reduction in compensation payable where there is a chance that the same outcome would have been reached in the absence of discrimination ( �€˜chance model�€™) reduces the effectiveness of the existing protections. A move to a �€˜certainty model�€™ would be less speculative, would serve the objectives of anti-discrimination law and would reduce concerns about compatibility with EU law.

This paper examines the changes to pension ages in Greece and Ireland precipitated by the global financial crisis and introduced as a result of the Greek and Irish bail-outs. The paper analyses whether pensioners in the two jurisdictions had a legitimate expectation that such changes would not occur or whether they had a legitimate expectation that such changes would not be introduced without transitional measures. It concludes that, while there is no existing legal protection of the legitimate expectation in either case, there are some moral arguments in support of the introduction of transitional measures to ensure that pensioners can make the necessary adjustments to their financial affairs in the light of the changes in pension law.

This article addresses the development of age discrimination law in the Court of Justice and concludes that there is a marked difference in the level of discretion given to Member States in cases relating to mandatory retirement policies. The article will critique the approach of the Court of Justice to the legitimate objective test and the proportionality test in retirement cases. It will also argue that the decisions of the Court of Justice to date have all involved cases with very similar factual scenarios, and the article hypothesises how a different conclusion might be reached in cases with different factors. It also considers the impact of the Charter of Fundamental Rights on such cases. The article concludes by arguing that mandatory retirement policies may no longer be compatible with EU law and that there is a need to move towards more flexible retirement policies.

While field trips are often employed in primary and even second level education as a pedagogical tool, aimed at exposing students to real life experiences, such activities are not as popular at third level (Falk and Balling, 1982; Muse, Chiarelott and Davidman, 1982; Anderson and Zhang, 2003). However, such experiential learning techniques can be invaluable to university students by allowing them to engage more with the world around them and to see a practical side to their area of study. Scarce indentifies field trips as a form of ‘short-term experiential education’ and comments that ‘what students learn and the way they learn it should be rooted in society and in social experiences’ (Scarce, 1997, p. 219). He locates these activities in the experiential learning framework, as espoused by educationalists such as Dewey (1938) and DeMartini (1983). This short article contains an analysis of academic literature on the use of field trips in third level education and their potential value in the law curriculum. Law is a suitable subject to explore through the use of such trips, as lecturers endeavour to illustrate how the rules and principles propounded in legal instruments and cases influence society and how, concomitantly, societal changes and opinions influence the creation and development of law.

This paper has been led by the desire to reinstate the concept of real consent back into the discourse on migration and the recruitment process. An examination of the concept of recruitment for employ ment and of recruitment agencies will reveal the important role such intermediaries play in the international migration process. This will be followed by a brief description of both the international and national regulations presently governing recruitment agencies. The experience of Ireland and its recent unique encounters with international migration for employment will be used as a case study to demonstrate the types of obstacles that prevent real consensual recruitment for employment. The lack of regulation at an international and national level causes these obstacles. It is this author's opinion that certain measures are more effective than international action in this regard due to the inevitable flexibility and compromise inherent in international law. It is only when such obstacles are removed that real consent can finally be reinstated back into the lives of those migrating for employment, allowing the development of an open, transparent, and exploitation free recruitment process.

Abstract This article will analyse the provisions of, and the rationale for, the EU Sanctions Directive and the significant divergence in treatment of irregular immigrants in EU Member States, in particular, in relation to the provision of outstanding remuneration, which the EU Sanctions Directive has highlighted. Ireland, a state that has chosen to opt-out of the Directive, has been selected as a case study to analyse some of the issues that states encounter in bringing domestic labour policy in line with globalisation. In particular, this article will address the phenomenon of irregular immigration to Ireland, the current approach to the provision of outstanding remuneration and the rationale behind this current approach. Finally, the article will conclude that the reasoning behind the Irish opt-out was based upon misinformed assumptions about the purpose of the provision of outstanding remuneration arising out of a ‘disconnect’ between immigration and labour policy at a domestic level.

This paper addresses the rather vexed question of intergenerational balance, a balance which has become increasingly more difficult to achieve as a result of the impact of the financial crisis and the demographic crisis in Europe. More particularly, the paper examines the approach of European Union law to the issue of mandatory retirement, an approach which has generally left national courts with the difficult task of balancing the rights of older workers against the claims of younger workers with limited guidance from the ECJ as to how this can be achieved. Through an analysis of the legislative and judicial approach of the European Union and through an examination of the empirical evidence relating to the impact of mandatory retirement policies on intergenerational balance, it is concluded that while the European Union's current approach is justifiable, more specific guidance should be given to national courts to assist them in determining this problematic question. Recommendations as to the scope and content of such guidance are made.