Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to speak to the importance of this. I am looking at the advisory paper to the interdepartmental group from the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission independence and oversight. It states:

The UN Special Rapporteur has set out minimum requirements that a domestic reparation programme should fulfil, including that the programme be: “monitored through processes that include consultation with and the participation of survivors” ...

IHREC recommends that the Government establish both an independent redress body to administer the scheme and an oversight mechanism to review decisions of that body. It recommends that survivors and individuals with expertise in human rights and equality, transitional justice and alternative dispute resolution should be represented on the redress body and any oversight mechanism.

What is being repeated all the time in this report is the importance of trained people. On one level it is positive that there will be training but I hear the word "module" being used. It is not possible to get training in a module. You have to have people with expertise, background and experience who understand the complexity of trauma. If we are moving from a position where we are talking about children between zero and six months being a tabula rasa, we have a long way to go and a module is not going to sort that out. The Irish Council for Civil Liberties also points out the importance of an independent process with regard to appeals. That is the theme throughout all these papers. There is a requirement for a human-rights based approach to set out the principles and then the process functions with that overall thing.

That has not happened. I read out the basic principles from the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, which asks for the most basic elements to be enshrined in the Bill in order that we and the people administering it would know what we have learned and what we want to achieve. That also has not happened.

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