The proposals in this Bill, and those which led to the setting up of the Human Rights Commission, can be traced back to the provisions in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement relating to rights, safeguards and equality of opportunity. The convention protects the basic civil and political rights in any democratic state. From the outset, Ireland was an enthusiastic supporter of the European Convention on Human Rights. It was one of the ten original parties to the convention and one of the first countries to allow citizens to take cases directly to the European Commission and Court of Human Rights. This resulted in a number of important decisions in Irish cases to which the Minister has already alluded.