Mr. Tony Geoghegan:

I am in agreement with Deputy Daly's comments. From IHREC's point of view, the main issues regarding the human rights and equality provisions are about clarity to ensure the blurred boundaries Deputy Daly mentioned are clarified and that we have very clear advice. This would make it easier for everybody, including gardaí and the public. We need the data to review the impact of the restrictions. Our sense is they have impacted much more on certain groups than others. To hold this up we need the data. To have a proper review we need disaggregated data broken down.

The final point the commission is strong on is about democratic oversight. While our exercise today is part of that democratic oversight, to ensure equality and human rights issues are in the frame all the time, there should be an Oireachtas subcommittee on diversity, human rights and equality, given so many of these decisions are made between NPHET and the Government. There was a human rights subcommittee on NPHET which was discontinued. We are not sure there is adequate expertise in human rights and equality available to NPHET. We would encourage there to be a human rights and equality subcommittee or someone on the main committee who has expertise in that to ensure measures are proofed through equality and human rights lenses and to look at the democratic oversight. As Deputy Daly said, how much time does Parliament have to oversee the new regulations and legislation which came in? Those are the important points I wanted to push.