Derek Nolan (Galway West, Labour)
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138. To ask the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade when Ireland will ratify the optional protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5132/15]

Charles Flanagan (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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The UN Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights opened for signature by UN Member States in New York in September 2009. To date, forty-five States have signed the Optional Protocol, including eleven of the twenty-eight European Union member States. Seventeen States have ratified the Optional Protocol: Argentina, Belgium. Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cabo Verde, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Finland, Gabon, Mongolia, Montenegro, Niger, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and Uruguay. The Optional Protocol came into force on 5 May 2013, three months after the deposit with the United Nations Secretary General of the tenth instrument of ratification or accession. Ireland’s signature of the Optional Protocol took place on 23 March 2012. Ratification of the Optional Protocol is a separate step which requires a thorough screening of the obligations to be assumed, extensive consultation with all Departments involved, and consideration by the Government in due course.