David Norris (Independent)

I have indicated that I very much regret this Government clearly has committed itself to a policy that is deeply antagonistic to the entire area of human rights. There cannot be any doubt about that. I know from speaking to my Fianna Fáil and Green Party colleagues that Members on the opposite side of the House have equally little doubt about the matter. I commend the Green Party and Deputy Cuffe in particular, for bravely standing up to oppose the Government's swingeing attacks on human rights. This Bill comprises a small part of an attack being made across all Departments. This is a shameful campaign and it renders valueless the speeches made by Government Members on human rights day.

I will not rehearse the comments I made earlier but will, if the House permits me, quote from a learned paper by Dr. Oonagh Breen because it is important to flesh out the political views of people such as me with the opinion of somebody with an extensive academic acquaintance of this area. Dr. Breen states: "No reasons have been publicly offered for the subsequent deletion of the advancement of human rights from the published Bill." This comes on foot of the fact that the initial consultation paper on charity law reform did not originally include human rights in the proposed list of charitable purposes but the public's disagreement with this policy decision led the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht affairs to remedy this omission in its 2006 general scheme of the bill with express reference to the charitable nature of the advancement of human rights. Human rights were specifically removed, therefore. Nobody can tell me that is not sinister. Dr. Breen continues:

The Minister of State for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, although promising to return to the issue at report stage, declined to speculate on the possibility ultimately making the list other than to say the matter was being considered by the relevant departments and the Attorney General.

I want the Minister of State to specifically state whether he has received advice from the Attorney General on this issue and, if so, whether it was negative and what it contained. Is this a political decision rather than one with a firm legal basis?

Dr. Breen states:

It is trite but true to say that the issue will turn upon politics or, at least, a conception of what is "political" and whether political acts, even if not for political purposes, should qualify as charitable. In the absence of an express charitable purpose in favour of human rights, human rights organisations may find no natural home for themselves in the statute other than the broad heading of organisations supportive of "political causes". From a legal perspective, given the existence of so many human rights organisations that pursue charitable purposes, this default labelling — or even the potential for such default classification — is an altogether insufficient categorisation of the promotion of human rights in the context of charity law.

These comments do not come from the alliance of charities, which could be said to have an axe to grind. This is the dispassionate view of a professional whose legal expertise has been brought to bear on the problem. Dr. Breen further states:

The problem with s. 2, as it stands, is twofold. First, it offers no insight into what is meant by the phrase "political cause" that, if found to be a body's principal object, results in its non-eligibility for charitable status. Ultimately, human rights organisations stand to lose the most from this. There is no direct judicial authority on the meaning or scope of the phrase "political cause" to assist the regulator in applying this concept. In a non-charity context, the High Court has interpreted the phrase "political end", drawing upon English charity case law in its exegesis, but it is unclear whether the terms are synonymous. If promotion of human rights is ultimately excluded from the statutory list of charitable purposes (putting the Irish definition at odds with that of its neighbours, all of which expressly recognise the charitable status of human rights bodies), organisations in this field would be well advised to set out their objects as precisely as possible in the governing instrument, relating them back to the other established heads of charity and demonstrating the non-political ways in which human rights will be promoted.

A second problem with s. 2 relates to its limits. As discussed above, s. 2 is concerned solely with the purposes for which an organisation is established. It is silent on the extent to which legitimate charities may employ political means to achieve their ends.

I apologise for quoting more extensively than I normally do. I usually speak off the cuff rather than refer to documents but these points are so convincing and irrefutable from an independent and dispassionate perspective that if the Government refuses to address them, it will be clear that the Bill represents another attack on human rights. Particularly due to its actions over the past year, this hypocritical Government has the worst human rights record of any I can recall in my 21 years in this House. It is mounting a sustained attack on the Combat Poverty Agency, the Human Rights Commission and the Equality Authority. They are irritants but that is the reason they should be supported. Otherwise, we might as well abolish the Opposition, pestilent Independent Members and turbulent priests of a non-Roman Catholic variety.

I received correspondence from FLAC, Amnesty, Front Line and ICCL which referred to a report by the Charities Commission for England and Wales entitled Charities Working in the Field of Human Rights. This report points out that human rights charities are more likely to have complaints made against them because of the high profile of their work. It states:

Broadly speaking we found that these charities' performance and governance arrangements were in line with other charities. We did, though, find evidence of more complaints about their work than other types of charities. This is perhaps unsurprising given the generally high profile and contentious nature of the fields in which they work.

With human rights consistently under the media spotlight, and the recent recognition of the promotion of human rights as a description of a charitable purpose in its own right in the Charities Act 2006, we hope this short overview illustrates some of the diverse ways charities seek to promote and safeguard human rights...

Human rights are seen as fundamental to the healthy functioning of society and respect for human rights is generally seen as a moral imperative. In [Britain], the implementation in 2000 of the Human Rights Act 1998 reinforces the legal imperative.

In 2002, the Government's Strategy Unit report Private Action, Public Benefit recommended the inclusion, in the proposed new Charities Act, of the promotion of human rights as a charitable purpose in its own right. Its reasoning was that this would "allow charities to play their full part in the vital tasks of protecting human rights both in the UK and overseas" In the same year, the Charity Commission recognised the promotion of human rights as a charitable purpose in its own right . . .

Our findings were that human rights charities are broadly very similar to other charities on the Register in terms of their structure and governance. They have very similar concerns and issues to other types of charity. However, in some areas, while the concerns are similar, they are magnified for human rights charities.

That is an unanswerable case and the Minister of State will commit an act of moral cowardice if he evades it. All the charities have made this case. Why are they being spurned? I understand that independent reports submitted to the Government on this area made similar recommendations. It will be a black day for this House and for the Minister of State if he refuses, even at this late stage, to include human rights as part of the definition. It puts into context the public statements yesterday from members of the Government parties. I honour the Green Party and its representatives for taking a strong line on this issue and I urge them to continue to do so.