Professor Siobhán Mullally:

This relates to the international co-ordinating committee which accredits national human rights institutions. The Irish Human Rights Commission has been recognised as an A status institution. That accreditation is coming up for review as part of the ordinary process of review of accreditation statuses. A sub-committee of the international co-ordinating committee looks specifically at accreditation. Essential to our achieving the A status is ensuring we are fully independent and comply fully with the UN-Paris principles on national human rights institutions. The selection and appointment of the commission and the processes followed in that regard, including our capacity to recruit and appoint senior staff, our engagement with civil society on all of the issues covered by the Paris principles, form part of the accreditation process. We would be very keen to ensure we retain that status because it would give the commission standing, as it has previously had, with international human rights bodies that would not be available to institutions that do not have that A status.

That would not be available to institutions that do not have that A status. Given that Ireland is a member of the UN Human Rights Council at present it would be critical to retain that. Crucially, it is about the question of our independence, resources and our capacity to function effectively and to achieve our mandates.