Our Team

Robert leads the Vincentian MESL Research Centre at SVP. Working on the Minimum Essential Standard of Living (MESL) research since 2010, his work has focused on the expansion of budget standards research in Ireland, developing its applications to assessing income adequacy, policy analysis and informing evidence-based recommendations. He has a particular research interest in income adequacy and approaches to measuring poverty and social exclusion.
Robert is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin and Queens University Belfast, he is a founding member of the Irish Living Wage Technical Group and sits on the Roadmap for Social Inclusion steering group.

Hannah Boylan joined the Minimum Essential Standard of Living (MESL) Research Team as a Researcher in March of 2020. Hannah is a graduate of Maynooth University and University College Dublin.
She has a particular interest in adapting the MESL data for specific research projects to explore the MESL cost for particular groups in society, and has been involved in two projects which examined the MESL costs for a family caring for a child with a profound intellectual disability, as well as the MESL cost for families living in the Direct Provision system.

Niamh is a MESL Researcher in the Vincentian MESL Research Centre at SVP.
Niamh completed her Master of Social Science Degree (Rights & Social Policy) from Maynooth University in 2021. Niamh also holds a Bachelor of Social Science Degree from Maynooth University.
Before joining the MESL Research Centre in November 2022, Niamh was a research officer at the Health Information and Quality Authority, where she worked on the Quality Team.
Her research interests include human rights, equality and social justice.