Professor Michael O'Flaherty:

I thank the Chairman for the invitation. It is a great honour to be here. I am professor of human rights law at NUI Galway and also director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights. I was a member and vice-chair of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which is the monitoring body we are discussing and which will review Ireland's report in July.

Before coming to the topic on which I have been invited to speak, I join the other speakers in applauding this initiative by the Seanad, which is really international good practice. We all recognise that Parliament plays a critical role in the protection of human rights and in the implementation of international human rights treaty standards, but it is more often acknowledged in rhetoric than in reality. This initiative is a demonstration of a manner in which the Seanad is really developing good strategies around the role of Parliament from which other countries can learn.

The initiative the committee has taken in convening these hearings and deciding to adopt a report is strongly supported by high level international policy documents. For example, in 2011, the leaders of all the United Nations human rights treaty monitoring bodies met in Dublin and adopted the Dublin Outcome Document, which contains numerous references to the critical role of Parliament for the operation of the system. Much more recently, 27 Irish human rights groups met in Galway to adopt the Galway Platform on Human Rights in Irish Foreign Policy, which again made strong reference to the role Parliament needs to play.

Turning to what I was asked to speak about, I was asked to speak not so much about human rights issues in Ireland but rather on the broad process of what the human rights committee will do in the context of the report Ireland has submitted. First, what is the human rights committee? It is a body of independent experts elected by the states, including Ireland, that are parties to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It is a body that is elected periodically and on which all the members serve in an independent expert capacity - so they are human rights specialists and do not represent states.

The committee carries out many functions, some of which were referred to. The one of most interest for us today is the periodic review of reports submitted by states that are parties to the covenant.

As I mentioned, Ireland submitted a report approximately two years ago and it will finally be reviewed by the committee in proceedings in July.
It is important to recall that the report by Ireland under the covenant is not a general human rights report. It only covers issues of civil and political rights such as: the prohibition on torture; freedom from slavery; the freedoms of expression, movement and assembly; the rights of non-discrimination and equality; prison conditions; and so forth. The first step was the submission of the Irish report two years ago. A year ago the UN Human Rights Committee, based on what it read in the Irish report, developed the document that was mentioned this morning, the list of issues. In essence, it is 26 or 27 questions that the UN puts to Ireland regarding issues it considers to be of particular concern. The list of issues is, in a sense, an early indication of where the UN Human Rights Committee sees the existence of problems. That list was responded to by the Irish Government in February this year in a lengthy written document in which it sought to allay concerns and provide the additional information that had been sought by the UN Human Rights Committee.
Side by side with this formal process, from when the Irish report was submitted and continuing up to now, there are submissions and interventions by non-governmental organisations, NGOs, and by the Irish Human Rights Commission. There is no restraint on the number of submissions that can be made. They will continue to be made to the UN Human Rights Committee up to the review in July.
It is on the basis of all of these materials - the State report, the NGO submissions, the response to the list of issues and, indeed, the report the Seanad Public Consultation Committee will adopt, which I hope and expect to be tabled at the UN Human Rights Committee, that the UN Human Rights Committee will engage in a dialogue over six hours with a delegation from Dublin appointed by the Government. I have no idea who will be on the Irish delegation but, typically, these delegations are headed by Ministers or very senior civil servants. There is no rule book, but they are senior serious delegations that include public officials from across the areas which are likely to be subject to discussion. The six hour review in Geneva will be webcast, so it will be accessible and watched worldwide. Side by side with that dialogue, there will be a number of sideline events organised by civil society and, if it so chooses, by Ireland's national human rights institution, the Irish Human Rights Commission.
About a week after the six-hour dialogue with the Irish delegation, the UN Human Rights Committee will produce the outcome document. It is a terribly important piece of paper with a very dull title, the Concluding Observations. In essence, it is the findings of the UN Human Rights Committee on the situation of these civil and political rights in Ireland. This is a very detailed document. Typically, it will be seven or eight pages in length and will raise 26 to 28 issues. It will, in the first place, acknowledge achievements, but that is always a short section for any country. It will then map out what it sees as the areas of concern and deliver to Ireland quite detailed and carefully crafted recommendations on how best to address them.
Ireland last went through this procedure in 2008 and I can give a flavour of the type of findings the committee adopted. I will outline the recommendation on one issue, the then situation of the Irish Human Rights Commission. Already in 2008 the first shadows were falling and it was clear that things were remiss. The committee made a reference to the commission and engaged the role of the Oireachtas when it adopted a recommendation stating that the state party, Ireland, should strengthen the independence and capacity of the Irish Human Rights Commission to fulfil its mandate effectively in accordance with the Paris Principles and that it should do so by endowing the commission with adequate and sufficient resources and by linking it to the Oireachtas. It is an interesting reference to the role of the Oireachtas and its relationship to the commission. It is an example of the findings that the UN Human Rights Committee typically adopts.
There will be 26 to 28 areas of concern addressed by the committee and there is an element of prioritisation within that list. The committee has a practice of identifying three issues which it sees as having particular urgency and with regard to which the UN will refer back to the Government time and again to seek information on what is being done to address the concerns and to implement the recommendations. Again, by way of illustration and to give Senators a sense of the type of things that interest the UN Human Rights Committee, the areas of particular urgency it identified in 2008 included: the legislative framework to combat terrorism in Ireland - there was some concern about the looseness of definitions which might lead to abuse; the issue of prisons, which was the second of the three areas and referred to issues such as those which members heard about this morning from the Irish Penal Reform Trust; and, third, the lack of access for those who wished to have access to secular primary education in some parts of the country.
The committee will therefore adopt its conclusions with some prioritisation, and I cannot predict what the priority issues will be. Then there will be what is by far the most important moment. The formal process will end, but the work will begin. It is then that the recommendations must be brought home and implemented. As much as possible must be done during the five or so years before the UN Human Rights Committee will again review Ireland's record of compliance.
I will conclude my comments by speaking to the issue of the role Parliament can and might play in this process. The first matter to stress is that Parliament has a legitimate role at every stage of the process, namely, in the period before the Irish report is submitted, in consultations as to its content and in commentary subsequent to and across each of the stages I have mapped out. With regard to what specifically I might suggest as to how Parliament or the Seanad might engage around the review procedure, it can do what this committee is doing, which is to draw attention to and promote awareness of these procedures. UN monitoring systems may be effective and significant, but they are also remarkably little understood and little known. The Seanad potentially has a really important role in that regard.
Second, I suggest that the Seanad has a role in giving a voice to the human rights actors. Some actors do not need its help to have a voice. The powerful organisations will grab the attention of The Irish Timeswhenever they so choose, but there are other voices that are heard less. Hearings such as these can play a role in that regard. I was terribly moved to hear our colleagues from the Irish Traveller Movement speaking earlier. I suspect that the situation of Travellers has probably never been put more eloquently in the Oireachtas than it was today. That is a moment of great significance.
A third function I would suggest is the one this committee will undertake through its report, which is that of making its own substantive contribution to the proceedings of the UN, by not just facilitating the voices of others but adding the voice of Parliament, which is and must be a separate voice to that of the Government.
Finally, and perhaps most important, there is the role of Parliament in holding the Government to account. There is nothing shameful in holding a government, no matter how good it is, to account on its commitments. That is, above all else, the role of a body such as the Seanad. It has numerous possibilities to do so in its engagement with Ministers and all elements of the Government at every stage of the process, including and most importantly after July next when the recommendations are brought home and there is an expectation that they will be implemented.
I will conclude with that. I have distributed a pack with some materials. It contains a copy of the Dublin II Outcome Document, which is the important policy statement adopted in Dublin in 2011 and contains at least three references to the role of Parliament. Second, there is a copy of the Galway Platform on Human Rights in Irish Foreign Policy, which was a submission for the foreign policy review of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and which again reinforces the initiative the Seanad is taking. The pack also contains a copy of the Concluding Observations adopted by the UN Human Rights Committee on Ireland in 2008. The committee will be struck by the extent to which they remain of contemporary interest. Finally, I included a small two page article by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navanethem Pillay, in which she discusses elegantly and clearly why this system matters, why treaty bodies make a difference and why proceedings such as the review of the Irish report can make an impact on the strength of human rights protection on the ground.