Many people contributed in different ways to the study described in this Report. We would like to thank the representatives from the following charitable organisations who participated in an initial workshop on the research scope and themes: Society of St Vincent de Paul, Simon Community, Union of Voluntary Organisations for the Handicapped, the Housing Centre, Protestant Aid and Concern. We also wish to thank Mr. Bob Carroll of the National Council for the Elderly who also participated in the workshop. We are grateful to Professor Brendan Whelan of the Economic and Social Research Institute for his assistance in drawing the sample for the study and to Mr. Raymond Mulvihill and Ms. Niamh Flanagan for their work on the statistical analyses. We would also like to acknowledge the contribution of Ms. Emer Smythe to the drafting of the Literature Review. We are indebted to Ms. Maureen Ryan and Ms. Barbara Crowley for their work in organising and co-ordinating the fieldwork and to the PRC s network of fieldworkers for carrying out the interviews. We also wish to express our appreciation of the work of Ms. Catriona O Neill in supervising the coding of the interview schedules and of Ms. Carol Phelan in typing the many drafts of the Report and in administering the project. - from Amzon