Dr. Des Hogan:

This is a very welcome hearing insofar as this Seanad committee is considering the State's response to the ICCPR.  It is a significant step forward for parliamentarians in terms of calling the Executive to account. The UN Human Rights Committee has given concluding observations on Ireland in 2008 and a list of issues last year.  The Government has given its response and the question arises of whether it meets all of the committee's concerns.  This is because Ireland has signed and ratified the ICCPR, one of the founding international treaties to which most states have signed up.  These are real questions and it would be interesting for us to learn the nature of Senators' interaction with the Executive in terms of the delegation that will go to Geneva, what it will bring there and what it will bring back.

On the question of the commission, as the acting chairperson, Mr. Joyce, has noted, we are Ireland's A status human rights institution and we hope that when we are up for re-accreditation in over the next we will retain that status subsequent to our merger with our colleagues in the Equality Authority. We have highlighted section 23 of the Bill in regard to proper resourcing of the commission. This was a concern expressed by the UN Human Rights Committee in 2008 and the State will have to show how it is meeting that commitment. There are two ways of meeting a commitment of this nature. One could provide adequate on a year-on-year basis, underpinned by protocols or legislation. We accept that it is not possible to set out the budget one wants in legislation but we have asked that the Bill be strengthened slightly so that it is reasonable.

If it is subject to two Ministers having a kind of subjective view on what is reasonable and what is not, one may go in the direction of what we had in the past, namely, the budget cuts which are difficult to oppose when one is administratively linked to the Department imposing the cut and something which is not, in terms of best practice, in the Belgrade Principles and the UN Paris Principles. From our perspective, we have very much welcomed the increase in budget we received this year. The question will be whether that can be sustained. Also, as we are going through a process of merger and amalgamation, by definition, we are not able to give the outputs we normally do in a normal budgeting year. Our staff is much reduced so we would not be able to meet the pay and non-pay sides in this particular given year. That should not be the baseline for future years but it should be a reasonable, stated and argued case which has the backing of Parliament so that we are either Ireland's A status national human rights institution or we are not. That is the question and the one the UN will ask us over the next few months as well.