Gaming disorder is set to be included in the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems alongside other behavioural addictions (gambling disorder) and substance-related addictions. Given the popularity of online gaming, this is set to become an increasingly common presentation to general mental health professionals, addiction specialists, and general practitioners. This article briefly examines online gaming and describes the characteristics of gaming disorder. Some features of online gaming that have addictive potential and similarities to other addictive behaviours such as gambling disorder are discussed. Finally, the article examines treatment options available for gaming disorder and treatment going forward from an Irish perspective.

In the article, Jennefer Aston reflects on the involvement in BIALL of law librarians from Ireland. She writes about the development of the BIALL Irish Group, some of the challenges that Irish law librarians have faced, notes how the legal sector in Ireland grew in the 1980s and 1990s and describes the collaboration and the activities of law librarians in Ireland. She also invites former Chair of the Association, John Furlong, and current President, Renate ní Uigín, to give some thoughts too.

Studies on welfare reform in advanced European countries have identified two established paths to welfare retrenchment: government unilateralism and corporatist bargaining. This study explores a more complicated path to welfare reform, wherein governments pursue ‘non-corporatist’ bargaining by actively combining features of unilateralism and negotiation. Such a hybrid case is explained by employing an ‘insider-outsider’ framework for public policy reform. The key argument is that the presence of exclusive insiders complicates the reform process, disqualifying both unilateralism and corporatist bargaining as feasible options for benefit cuts. The author demonstrates the validity of this claim by examining three cases of public sector pension retrenchment in the UK and Ireland during the 2000s and 2010s. Defying the common expectation that benefit cuts in residual welfare states would be promoted with government unilateralism, the public sector pension reforms in the UK and Ireland exhibited more complicated features which combined governments' unilateral initiatives and ad hoc negotiations with public sector unions. Future studies may build on this finding to examine hybrid reform cases in a general European context.

Knowledge regarding helminth control strategies and nematode infection of horses in Ireland is limited and only one study has been published recently. This present study was designed to investigate the current helminth control strategies followed by horse owners in Ireland. A questionnaire was formulated to collect data on general grazing, pasture management and deworming strategies including the use of fecal egg counts. Questionnaires were emailed to 700 members of the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders Association and Horse Sport Ireland. Only 78 questionnaires were returned. Respondents indicated that horses are grazed for 16–24 h day−1 during the summer and autumn (89% and 65%, respectively). Removing feces from the pasture was implemented by 37.6% of respondents. Few (22.2%) owners kept horses off pasture after worming. Overall, ivermectin and moxidectin were the most commonly administered anthelmintics in 2014 by 75% and 62% of respondents, respectively. Benzimidazole and pyrantel drugs were used by 53% and 35% of respondents, respectively. The majority of farms (81.4%) treated horses 4–5 times per year and 74.2% only estimated the weight of the horses visually. The findings of this study illustrates that many stud managers/owners do not follow best practice with regard to helminth control and more education is needed.

A country’s healthcare system—the protection and healing of some its weakest people, its sick and injured—could be considered to be one of the most definitive expressions of its national morality. In recent decades, Ireland has experienced profound cultural changes; from a mostly monocultural and religious society to a multi-ethnic one, where secular ideas predominate. Economically, it is largely neoliberal, with one of the world’s most open economies, and one of its lowest corporate tax rates; though there is also a welfare state. Its healthcare system has reflected these cultural changes. The system has evolved, gradually, from being run almost exclusively by religious groups, to becoming essentially secular in nature (though religious groups are still involved at the ownership level). Overall, the system is run according to the two competing secular ideologies which currently predominate; it is a two-tier system, with a mix of a neoliberally oriented (though government subsidized) private system, and a public system. The latter has been starved of resources in recent decades; so to achieve good, or at times adequate healthcare, it is almost essential to have private health insurance (which about half of the population have).

This two-tier system has led to significant concerns and occasional scandals; for example, patients dying while on waiting lists for public treatment, who could have been treated and possibly saved if they had health insurance. A purely ethical approach to healthcare—with the aim of healing the sick—has been mixed with competing motives, such as the desire for profit in the private sector, or for short term savings and box-ticking in the public system. Thus, good healthcare practice and best moral practice are being undermined by competing agendas.

In this article, I describe and reflect ethically on the Irish healthcare system, and how it has evolved to its current state. I also discuss how dysfunction in the healthcare system, leading to the death of a pregnant woman, Savita Halappanavar, was a major factor in a constitutional ban on abortion being overturned.

Excavation at Hermitage, Ireland, revealed Early Mesolithic human cremation burials. One burial contained a stone adze, possibly used in a funerary rite and ritually blunted. The Hermitage Archaeological Research Project aims to identify the extent of mortuary activity, and to place these burials in their broader landscape context.

To date, there are no recent studies identifying the prevalence of parasites of human and veterinary importance in dogs and cats in Ireland. The interaction between pets and wildlife species in the environment is an important source of parasite exposure to canids and felines, and one likely to be heightened in the stray animal population. This study aimed to establish the prevalence of endoparasites in unowned dogs and cats in County Dublin, Ireland. Feces from stray dogs (n = 627) and cats (n = 289) entering a rehoming centre were collected immediately after defecation. The main parasitic agents detected were ascarids (15.52 and 30.26%), Cystoisospora (3.27 and 3.69%), Giardia spp. (6.02 and 1.84%) and lungworms (0.64 and 2.08%), in dogs and cats respectively. Animals younger than 3 months of age were more likely to be infected with ascarids (P < 0.001) and Cystoisospora spp. (P = 0.008 and P = 0.014) than older animals. All lungworms were morphologically identified and dogs were infected with Angiostrongylus vasorum (0.48%) and Crenosoma vulpis (0.16%) whereas cats were only infected with Aelurostrongylus abstrusus (2.08%). This represents the first prevalence study of stray animals in Ireland. Data collected will inform the treatment and in addition, the future monitoring and control studies of parasite populations.

The first detailed investigation of the human remains from the Carrowkeel passage tomb complex since their excavation in 1911 has revealed several new and important insights about life, death, and mortuary practice in Neolithic Ireland. Osteological analysis provides the first conclusive proof for the occurrence of dismemberment of the dead at Irish passage tombs, practised contemporarily with cremation as one of a suite of funerary treatments. The research also highlights changes in burial tradition at the complex over the course of the Neolithic. Providing a chronology for these changes allows them to be linked to wider trends in monument construction, which may relate to changes in both land use and climate during the period. Multi-isotope analysis hints at the presence of non-local individuals among the interred and the possible existence of different food sourcing areas at the onset of the later Neolithic period. Preliminary results from ancient DNA sequencing of six individuals from Carrowkeel provide evidence for the genetic ancestry of Irish Neolithic populations, demonstrating their Anatolian origins and links along the Atlantic façade.

Research has repeatedly shown that individuals and organisations tend to obtain information from others whose beliefs are similar to their own, forming “echo chambers” with their network ties. Echo chambers are potentially harmful for evidence-based policymaking as they can hinder policy learning and consensus building. Policy forums could help alleviate the effects of echo chambers if organisations with different views were to participate and to use the opportunities that forums provide to learn from those outside their networks. Applying exponential random graph models on survey data of the Irish climate change policy network, we find that policy actors do indeed tend to obtain policy advice from those whose beliefs are similar to their own. We also find that actors tend not to obtain policy advice from the those that they encounter at policy forums, suggesting forums are not enabling policy learning.

The McCann FitzGerald library provides a library and information service to one of Ireland's premier law firms. As Megan Guthrie explains, it was decided to reclassify the library collection using the Moys Classification Scheme for Legal Materials1 to enhance and improve the flow of the collection. It also provided an opportunity to conduct a stocktake of library material. The project was broken down into three main steps: assigning a Moys number, relabelling the physical material and updating the library management system. There were a number of challenges including the need to modify or add to the Moys numbers and finding the optimal process for relabelling and accounting for the material. It was necessary to adapt the initial plan throughout the project to account for any obstacles or restrictions that were encountered.

This Review describes the objectives and methodology of the DairyWater project as it aims to aid the Irish dairy processing industry in achieving sustainability as it expands. With the abolition of European milk quotas in March 2015, the Republic of Ireland saw a surge in milk production. The DairyWater project was established in anticipation of this expansion of the Irish dairy sector in order to develop innovative solutions for the efficient management of water consumption, wastewater treatment and the resulting energy use within the country's dairy processing industry. Therefore, the project can be divided into three main thematic areas: dairy wastewater treatment technologies and microbial analysis, water re-use and rainwater harvesting and environmental assessment. In order to ensure the project remains as relevant as possible to the industry, a project advisory board containing key industry stakeholders has been established. To date, a number of large scale studies, using data obtained directly from the Irish dairy industry, have been performed. Additionally, pilot-scale wastewater treatment (intermittently aerated sequencing batch reactor) and tertiary treatment (flow-through pulsed ultraviolet system) technologies have been demonstrated within the project. Further details on selected aspects of the project are discussed in greater detail in the subsequent cluster of research communications.