Ms Eilis Barry:

FLAC warmly welcomes the opportunity to make this submission and opening statement to this very important committee. Our recommendations are based on FLAC’s experience of the JUSTROM programme, which was a Council of Europe initiative. Within this programme we supported the running of legal clinics for Travellers and Roma people. As part of that programme, we were very struck by the level and extent of unmet legal need that Travellers experience, particularly in housing, standards of accommodation, evictions and discrimination in access to good and services, including licensed premises. We believe access to justice is essential to addressing the unmet legal need and is integral and essential for social inclusion. We hope access to justice will be a foundational theme in the committee’s report.

The enforcement of rights and obligations regarding the provision of services, education and accommodation under the equality legislation is critical to access to justice for Travellers. However, rights are only effective insofar as they can be enforced and there is currently no legal aid available for persons to bring claims of discrimination under the equality legislation and regarding social welfare appeals and claims, no matter how complex or important the issue is, how few resources a potential complainant may have, or what capacity the complainant has to represent himself or herself. The Minister for Justice and Equality can enable the Legal Aid Board to provide legal aid in discrimination claims and social welfare matters by simply designating the Workplace Relations Commission, the Labour Court and social welfare claims and appeals officers within the Civil Legal Aid Act. It does not need legislative change.

There is also a misperception and lack of clarity as to the extent to which the Legal Aid Board can deal with housing issues. We believe there is nothing in the Civil Legal Aid Act which stops it providing legal aid in cases dealing with the legal responsibilities of local authorities and the State regarding housing and homelessness. However, the Act needs to be amended to ensure that legal aid is available in eviction cases. FLAC has furnished the Minister with an amendment which, if enacted, would ensure that legal aid would be available.

We note with surprise that the number of complaints, under the equality legislation, made to the Workplace Relations Commission with respect to the Equal Status Act is reducing. We also note the number of discrimination claims against licensed premises has plummeted since the jurisdiction for such claims was transferred to the District Court, even though legal aid may be available for claims against licensed premises. We would like the committee to recommend that the Legal Aid Board engage in an information campaign about legal aid entitlements with respect to housing and discrimination claims against licensed premises. We would also like it to recommend that a targeted co-ordinated information campaign about the important provisions in the equality legislation be carried out bodies such as the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, the Workplace Relations Commission, the Citizens Information Board and Traveller non-governmental organisations.

Regarding accommodation, FLAC recommends that the committee seek a commitment from the Minister to take immediate steps to implement the recommendations of the expert review group when its report is published. With respect to standards in Traveller specific accommodation, we recommend the immediate review of guidelines published in 1998 on Traveller accommodation and extending standards for rented housing under the Housing (Standards for Rented Houses) Regulations 2019 to include halting sites, including transient, temporary and permanent halting sites. A range of legislation allows for summary evictions and in our submission we call for the Minister to review such legislation to ensure that, other than in the most exceptional circumstances, a family home can never be interfered with in the absence of a merits based determination by a court, and to place an onus on the local authorities to offer alternative appropriate accommodation.

We echo previous submissions that the positive duty is a very important national mechanism for mainstreaming equality and human rights for Travellers. We believe the very broad range of public sector bodies covered by the positive duty will not be able to establish they have complied with this unless they engage in meaningful ongoing consultation with groups representing the discriminatory grounds that are covered in the equality legislation.

With respect to hate speech, we request that the committee ask why Ireland still has a reservation regarding Article 4 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination which deals with incitement to hatred. We ask the committee to recommend that Ireland incorporate the convention in law.

Regarding fair and accurate treatment in the media, defamation actions are expensive and very difficult to pursue and there is a blanket exclusion of defamation proceedings from the Civil Legal Aid Act, which means, in effect, that claims under the Defamation Act are only available to people with significant resources. Further, the protection afforded by the Defamation Act is limited in that it only protects an individual or a corporate entity targeted, so more generalised speech against a group is not in fact covered. We recommend that this matter be reviewed to provide a civil remedy for groups who are targeted by hate speech. A review of the Prohibition of Incitement to Hatred Act has been ongoing for some time. We recommend that this review be carried out in tandem with the review of the Defamation Act to ensure there is a civil remedy available for hate speech.