John Perry (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fine Gael)

I thank Deputy O'Brien for raising this important matter. The universal periodic review

UPR, process was initiated in 2008 by the UN Human Rights Council, HRC, and is a process whereby the domestic human rights records of all 192 UN member states are reviewed every four years. The process is important in raising awareness of standards with regard to human rights on a global level. This is Ireland's first review under the UPR mechanism and it has been a very useful and constructive exercise which provided the opportunity to examine the overall situation of human rights in Ireland. Early in 2011, we sought submissions from civil society and members of the public and in May and June, we held a series of public consultation meetings around the country to give individuals and groups the opportunity to raise human rights issues of concern to them. The issues highlighted informed the drafting of Ireland's first national report which was prepared with the assistance of an interdepartmental committee, on which all relevant Departments were consulted, and which was submitted to the UN Human Rights Council on 4 July 2011.

My colleague, the Minister, Deputy Shatter, represented Ireland at the interactive UPR dialogue in Geneva on 6 October 2011, at which delegations from 49 UN member states made comments. Of the 127 recommendations made to Ireland by other member states, we accepted 62 and rejected 15 at the formal adoption of Ireland's national report on Monday, 10 October. Ireland undertook to give careful consideration to a further 50 recommendations and provide a response by 29 February 2012.

The final stage in this round of the UPR process for Ireland is the adoption by the Human Rights Council of a report on the review of Ireland during the October session. This report is prepared by a working group of the Human Rights Council. In addition to the responses by Ireland to those recommendations which were addressed in October, the report will contain as an addendum Ireland's response to the remaining 50 recommendations mentioned earlier. This final report will then be adopted at the 19th session of the HRC in Geneva on Thursday, 15 March 2012.

I am pleased to inform the Deputy that of the 50 outstanding recommendations, Ireland fully accepts 29, partially accepts a further 17 and is unable to support only four. The format of the addendum allows us to include a concise explanation as to our response to each individual recommendation. Anybody who wishes to view the recommendations and Ireland's responses can access the addendum in the reports section of our UPR website, www.upr.ie. The adoption of the report on Ireland will be webcast live from Geneva on Thursday from 10.30 a.m. and will be available on the UN's website at www.unmultimedia.org.

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