Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the development of the Irish legal policy of social security. For this purpose, we first look at how the Irish social security system has formed. Secondly, we summarise the main trends in the Irish legal policy of social security from political independence to the 1990's. Thirdly, we discuss the forces behind the policy making, with special reference to the influences of the UK, the Catholic Church and political parties. In a broad sense, the Japanese word, "social security" contains three different concepts: income security, personal social services and health services. However, in this paper, we narrow our focus on the discussion of income security system. Therefore, we are not concerned here with personal social services and health services. This paper is a part of my comparative study on the law of social security and personal social services in Ireland, the UK, Australia and Japan.
