Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That is an example of where the human rights commission can play an advocacy role. The human rights commission cannot override the Constitution by effectively legislating for something that the Houses of the Oireachtas have not legislated for. An international convention may give voice to or detail what are perceived to be new human rights that states are not obliged to sign up. It would be open to the human rights commission to advocate that the State be a signatory and that domestic legislation be enacted to incorporate within domestic law those human rights. The human rights commission could not regard a body in this State as violating those human rights in the context of domestic law in circumstances where they were not part of it.