Katherine Zappone (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Logan for that response and I have one further comment.

An argument could be made that when legislation comes before all the committees, they are already implicitly reviewing it from a human rights perspective and the question could be asked why we are making a big deal about this. An example would be when Ireland goes before a particular UN committee in terms of a convention, as happened recently in terms of civil and political rights, and there is no formal engagement by the Oireachtas Members in that process. It is usually done by a particular Department bringing together information from other Departments and then the Minister goes in front of the committee. Legislators have not participated in that process, which is the reason we decided in the Seanad Public Consultation Committee to engage as legislators to look specifically at that committee and send a report from the legislators to it. That is an example of where such a review is not happening and law-makers are not engaging in an explicit way in a review of our obligations under UN conventions. Perhaps that is happening a little more in terms of the constitutional obligations but in terms of international treaties there is a big gap. This is why we are pursing it.