Ms Emily Logan:

As Ombudsman for Children for the past ten years, my experience, in terms of the public appetite for change, was that the Irish people are very interested in issues of fairness and social justice. Regardless of the political context, the public context is important. I feel the commission must bring human rights to life in a way that connects with communities - my most recent experience as Ombudsman for Children was working with the Roma community on the inquiry into the two children who were taken into care. It is clear to me that some communities have no idea that human rights exist or that there is an equality framework. We have much to do on promoting awareness and an understanding of human rights but there is a greater public appetite for social justice in Ireland since 2008.

The commission has much work to do to connect with the public and let them know the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission exists. People need to know that there are occasions when the commission can assist. There is a strong legislative framework and some new statutory functions. The commission is very interested in the positive duty described in section 42 of the Act as this is a new and welcome provision. The legislation provides a new articulation of statutory powers and it features the word "encouragement". The spirit of the legislation has changed - it wants to be connected. I want the commission to connect with the Irish public to enable people to understand what is a violation of human rights.

We have seen historically that it has taken some victims of abuse or mistreatment years to even fully understand that they have been mistreated. I am very keen that the commission should be active in educating the public about and in promoting human rights.

The second part of the Deputy's question related to human rights. There has been a focus on the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ICCPR. We are about to enter into a new phase of international monitoring and the UN Committee on Economic, Cultural and Social Rights will be beginning its process in early December. Representatives from the commission will attend a pre-sessional hearing with that committee. I assure the Deputy that the commission will not be shying away from issues relating to economic, cultural and social rights. What I can say is that ours is a 15-member commission and it is still early days. It is difficult, from a thematic point of view, to bring priorities to the table today because we have only entered into a very early stage of developing our first strategy. What I am mainly doing, therefore, is talking about a way of working and an expression of intent by the commission in terms of how it is going carry out its work.