Prof. Maggie O’Neill and Dr. Ray Griffin are the current directors of the centre.
It is evident that Ireland, just as the rest of the world is experiencing a very fundamental social, political and cultural crisis, which incorporates environmental crises and climate breakdown as well. Any claim that this crisis can be overcome by the standard means, and therefore soon we can return to business as usual, is not sound practical reason, but an irresponsible evasion of facing reality.
We have to reckon that we, altogether, have reached an impasse, or even paralysis. It is necessary to find a way forward, but for this we must be able to overcome some deeply ingrained ways of thinking . In the words of John Maynard Keynes, who faced a similar situation, ‘the difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds’.