Professor Gerard Quinn:

I thank the Chairman and members for inviting me here today. I feel very honoured and humbled to present myself at this meeting which is essentially a confirmation hearing. It is incredibly important that the enhanced role of Parliament is not just a nice thing but is vital to enhance the democratic legitimacy and the transparency of our processes going forward. I have provided a detailed one page résumé. I do not intend to dwell on it. I will pick out three points that may be of relevance in the committee's deliberations about suitability for confirmation.

I spent about six to seven years as first vice president of the Committee of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in the Council of Europe, which is a treaty monitoring body that essentially watches over the implementation of a Council of Europe Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights - something that is more important in Ireland in the vastly changed circumstances. I spent quite a period working at European level. I was a researcher in the EU 'Comité des Sages' in the 1990s, reflecting on the future of human rights in the European Union. I was a temporary civil servant in the European Commission working on equal opportunities, law and policy. I have directed many research networks for the European Commission and recently produced a report with the EU Fundamental Rights Agency on the status of people with intellectual disabilities in Europe. I led the delegation of Rehabilitation International in the UN in the drafting of the new UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.

In terms of my engagement with the issues in Ireland, I was a member of the Commission on the Status of People with Disabilities in the 1990s. I was for a period director of research at the Government's Law Reform Commission. I was a member of the Irish Human Rights Commission for two terms and in January this year I had the great honour of being appointed to the Council of State by President Michael D. Higgins.