Policy changes conceived in Costello’s ’Just Society’

A Fine Gael TD’s attempt in the 1960s to reconstitute the role of the State in society may have failed, but it later influenced major policy changes, writes Ciara Meehan.

IT HAS been 50 years since Fine Gael unanimously adopted the concept that would become Towards a Just Society.

Subsequently unveiled as the party’s manifesto for the 1965 general election, the document was conceived by Declan Costello. Son of former taoiseach John A Costello, he was part of the post-revolutionary generation.