Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Bill 2014 provides for the establishment of a new body to protect and promote human rights and equality, the Irish human rights and equality commission, IHREC. It merges and dissolves two existing organisations, the Irish Human Rights Commission, IHRC, and the Equality Authority. The Bill also seeks to implement a judgment of the European Court of Human Rights by amending the European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003 to provide for an enforceable right to compensation for a person found to be unlawfully deprived of her or his liberty as a result of a judicial act. I welcome that provision in the Bill but, unfortunately, I cannot welcome the amalgamation of the Irish Human Rights Commission and the Equality Authority because it is a retrograde step.

The Irish Human Rights Commission was established on foot of the Good Friday Agreement, which requires the Irish Government to ensure at least an equivalent level of protection of human rights as that which pertains in Northern Ireland. The primary duty of a human rights body is to hold the State to account in upholding human rights. The IHRC is currently accredited with the highest A-status by the United Nations, which measures national human rights institutions against international benchmarks, known as the Paris principles. The standing of the commission is likely to be reviewed on foot of the passing of this Bill. The Equality Authority was established in 1999 to replace the Employment Equality Agency. The authority works towards the elimination of discrimination and promotes equality in employment and the provision of goods and services across nine grounds that have been well rehearsed in this House. Among its other work, the authority advises individuals on how to pursue actions. I wonder whether that provision will continue apply under the Bill now before us where an investigation is conducted by the new body.

The Minister, Deputy Shatter, stated that the reason for the merger is to promote human rights and equality issues in a more efficient, effective and coherent way. An impact assessment of the Bill projected that it would save €500,000 per year. The Minister also stated that he increased the allocation for the new commission to €1.9 million last December. While that is welcome, the new commission will have a shortfall of €1.5 million in the funding available to it compared to the combined funding for its predecessors in 2009. That will seriously impact on its ability to carry out its work.

Equality advocates and human rights NGOs have expressed concerns about the Bill and there appears to be unanimous opposition to the merger. The Equality Rights Alliance, a coalition of over 170 bodies and activists, is opposed to the merger and suggests that three separate statutory bodies are necessary, namely, the Irish Human Rights Commission, a reconstituted Equality Authority and the Equality Tribunal. I am aware that the Equality Tribunal is not affected by this Bill. However, even though people who are involved on a day to day basis with issues of equality and human rights are opposed to the merger, the Government is proceeding with the Bill.

It should be necessary for the new body to treat human rights and equality issues fairly. Following a similar merger in the UK, equality issues took precedence over human rights and funding was allocated in an uneven fashion. International research has found insufficient evidence to indicate whether integrated bodies function better or worse than separate free standing national equality bodies and national human rights institutions. That is something we need to keep under review after the Bill is passed.

The Bill provides two different definitions of human rights. Concern has been expressed about this inconsistency. Section 29 of the Bill sets out a different definition of human rights to the definition contained in section 2. While the definition in section 29 is proposed to apply to the enforcement powers of the new commission, it will create problems for enforcement. The narrower definition proposed in sections 29 requires that the human rights in question have force of law in the State. This means such rights would need to be enshrined in legislation or at a constitutional level before they could be applicable to the functions and powers of the IHREC. In practical terms, it is suggested that the IHREC would be limited in protecting human rights because it could only directly encompass consideration of the Constitution, the European Convention on Human Rights at a sub-constitutional level through its implementation into Irish law by the European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003, and existing domestic equality legislation. The IHRC notes that as the State has a practice of not directly incorporating international treaties into national law, this would effectively exclude a number of significant treaties and conventions from consideration. According to the IHRC, the inability of the IHREC to respond to alleged breaches of the fundamental rights protections contained in these treaties would significantly undermine the credibility of the new body. If the Government is serious about human rights it will give the new commission powers to enforce the provisions contained in treaties to which this country has signed up. This issue could have significant implications from a human rights perspective. For example, the survivors of symphysiotomy made a submission claiming that the State violated the UN Convention against Torture by failing to initiate an independent inquiry and restitution scheme for victims of the scandal. The new commission would not be able to examine such a claim. To take another example, will it be able to examine the operation of direct provision in this State?

Questions also arise in regard to the independence of the new commission. It has been asserted that the increased accountability of the new IHREC to the Department of Justice and Equality is not conducive to independence or high-performance. The Scottish Human Rights Commission, which was created in 2008 and has since emerged as a model of best practice, is solely accountable to the Scottish Legislative Assembly and has no links to the Executive. The threshold proposed in the Bill for the carrying out of an inquiry by the commission is higher than existing equality legislation. The proposed threshold is the term"grave public concern", as opposed to the current term "any purpose connected with the performance of its functions". This may in practice limit the ability of the new commission to carry out inquiries.

Much has been made about the imposition of a positive duty on public bodies to have regard for equality and human rights in their work. However, while this provision is welcome, there is no provision for enforcing it. If we are to have meaningful human rights and equality legislation, every Department and public agency should be forced by law to take account of the duty. Successive budgets introduced by the current and previous Governments have given rise to questions about the equality or otherwise of actions taken.

The Irish Human Rights Commission and the Equality Authority should be able to look into that and should be able to make decisions in that regard. If we want to build an equal and fair society, we should be providing for that in legislation.

Most other jurisdictions have separate national equality bodies and national human rights institutions. Some countries have merged them, but a recent study found that there was insufficient evidence to say whether integrated bodies work better or worse than separate and free standing equality and human rights organisations. We should maintain the independence of both the human rights commission and the Equality Authority and strengthen them, and provide them with the resources to ensure that they can act to ensure that all public bodies comply with human rights and have enforceable powers to ensure that human rights and equality is complied with right across the State, because that is the only way that we can build a fair and equality society. We need that oversight and that rule.

Finally, on the membership of the commission, I note the members of the commission were appointed last year and they are proposed to be the members of the new commission. While the legislation states that the Paris Principles will be used in setting up the commission, the membership of the commission should be specified within the legislation as well. The Paris Principles state that non-governmental organisations and trade unions and Parliament should be represented on the commission and the legislation could be strengthened by including that in it.

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