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- CHECK AGAINST DELIVERY
- Ireland’s appearance before the UN Human Rights Committee
- on International Convention on Civil and Political Rights
- 14 – 15 July 2014
- Opening remarks by Ms Frances Fitzgerald TD, Minister for Justice and
- Equality
- Thank you Chairperson. I would like to thank you for your words of welcome
- and Ambassador Patricia O Brien who is our Permanent Representative to the
- UN in Geneva, for her words of introduction. I very much welcome the
- opportunity to be here. On a personal note, I was until very recently
- Minister with responsibility for children and youth affairs and for just
- two months now, I have responsibility for the Department of Justice and
- Equality.
- I want to start by introducing the other members of our delegation today.
- These are: Mr. Paul Hickey, Assistant Secretary, of my own Department who
- has overall responsibility for equality and migrant integration issues.
- Also from my Department, Mr. Deaglán Ó Briain, Head of Division with
- responsibility for equality legislation, including the establishment of our
- new Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. We have Mr. Noel Dowling
- who heads our Refugee Reception and Integration Agency and we have Mr.
- Kevin O Sullivan from the Irish National Immigration Service (INIS). Ms
- Layla de Cogan Chin has responsibility for coordination on our
- international human rights reporting obligations within my Department is
- here as is my Private Secretary Mr. Chris Quattrociocchi, and my Press
- Officer, Roisin Eccles,
- Mr. Richard Barrett, Advisory Counsel with our Attorney General’s Office
- will deal with any questions of a constitutional nature that members might
- raise.
- Turning to our Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, we have the Head of
- the Human Rights Unit, Mr. Colin Wrafter and Mr. Peter White Assistant
- Legal Adviser based in Dublin. Ms Mary Jackson from our Department of
- Health, will deal with questions that relate to that Department’s policy
- responsibilities. And from our Mission here in Geneva, we have Ms Nuala Ní
- Mhuircheartaigh Deputy Perm Rep., Mr. James O Shea, First Secretary, Ms
- Breda Lee First Secretary and Mr. Cathal Loughney, Attaché.
- Mr. Chairman, Ireland has a great respect for and attaches great
- significance to the UN human rights treaty monitoring process. Support for
- the role of the Treaty Monitoring Bodies is a cornerstone of Irish foreign
- policy in respect of the promotion of human rights globally and as members
- currently of the Human Rights Council we see the very real importance of
- this work.
- I am proud that Ireland played an instrumental role in the recently
- concluded treaty monitoring body strengthening process, which has resulted
- in greater resources for and helped secure the integrity and independence
- of the various Committees, which occupy such an important place in the UN
- human rights infrastructure.
- We have attempted throughout the reporting process on this Convention to be
- transparent and consultative, and we held civil society consultations in
- February and May 2012 and in June 2014. The June meeting was the first
- time we held a consultation at this stage of the process, and I understand
- that it was extremely useful and productive. We greatly value the
- submissions by Irish and international civil society to your Committee, as
- well as that of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. Civil
- society activism provides impetus to our continued efforts to respect,
- protect and fulfil the rights of all those living in Ireland. I also
- welcome the hearings organised by and the useful report prepared by my
- parliamentary colleagues in the Seanad Public Consultation Committee.
- I want to outline some significant developments since we provided our
- answers to the Committee’s written questions last February.
- As I said at the start, I am in my new Justice and Equality portfolio for
- just over two months. Reform of police accountability and oversight
- mechanisms is my central priority. We are progressing a package of
- measures aimed at restoring confidence in the performance, administration
- and oversight of policing in Ireland. The Government has decided that a
- Garda Síochána Authority will be created. Just very recently (on 1 July
- last), the Government agreed the Heads and General Scheme of the Garda
- Síochána (Amendment) Bill 2014 which proposes a number of reforms to the
- remit, functions and operation of the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission
- (GSOC).
- The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Bill is nearing completion
- of the enactment process – we finished all stages of parliamentary debate
- last Friday and now await the President’s signature. There were a number
- of significant amendments agreed to the Bill as it made its way through
- both Houses of the Oireachtas (our national parliament), including that the
- Director of the Commission will be appointed as Accounting Officer for the
- Vote of the Commission, to further underpin its financial independence, and
- a strengthening of text that relates to the duties of public bodies and the
- Commission’s work with public bodies in improving standards of compliance.
- We expect to be able to appoint a Chief Commissioner shortly – following a
- Paris Principles-compliant process independent of Government - and formally
- establish the new body in the autumn.
- The Gender Recognition Bill is being progressed, with a view to publishing
- it later this year. This will be a very significant reform for a
- particularly vulnerable group of people. The revised General Scheme of the
- Gender Recognition Bill – recently approved by the Government - includes an
- amendment to the requirement for an applicant for gender recognition to be
- 18 years or more. This will mean that:
- · a person aged 16 or 17 years may, with parent/guardian consent, apply
- for a Court order exempting them from that requirement;
- · the application by that 16 or 17 year old will be accompanied by
- confirmation from the treating physician and an independent physician
- that the person is sufficiently mature to make the application.
- There have been a number of significant recent developments in relation to
- access to lawful termination of pregnancy in Ireland. The Protection of
- Life During Pregnancy Act 2013 has been enacted to regulate access to
- lawful termination in accordance with the X case and the judgment of the
- European Court of Human Rights in the A, B and C v Ireland case. The 2013
- Act followed extensive consultation with stakeholders and detailed
- examination in parliament. Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution, as
- interpreted by the Supreme Court in Attorney General v X, provides that it
- is lawful to terminate a pregnancy in Ireland if it is established as a
- matter of probability that there is a real and substantial risk to the
- life, as distinct from the health, of the mother, which can only be avoided
- by a termination of the pregnancy. The purpose of the new legislation is
- to confer procedural rights on a woman who believes she has a
- life-threatening condition, so that she can have certainty as to whether
- she requires this treatment or not.
- The Act upholds the right to life of the unborn where practicable, and the
- right to life of a pregnant woman whose life is threatened by her
- pregnancy, as required by Article 40.3.3. The Act also creates procedures
- which apply to the lawful termination of pregnancy. The objectives of these
- procedures are firstly to ensure that, where lawful termination of
- pregnancy is under consideration, the right to life of the unborn is
- respected where practicable, and secondly to ensure that a woman can
- ascertain by means of a clear process whether she is entitled to medical
- treatment to which the Act applies.
- A Guidance Document to assist health professionals in the implementation of
- the Act has been prepared and will be published very shortly. The Guidance
- Document identifies referral pathways to fulfil the requirement of the Act
- and other relevant operational matters. It brings the necessary clarity
- for medical professional to implement the revised legislative regime.
- The Act is a very important recent development, but I also want to set our
- position in its historical and constitutional context. Abortion has been
- a highly politicised and divisive issue in Ireland for a number of decades.
- The question of the right to life of the unborn and the extent of that
- right has been the subject of five constitutional referenda held in 1983,
- 1992 and 2002. The issue of the extent of any entitlement to lawful
- abortion has been extensively debated in the political sphere. Not only has
- the Irish public and their political representatives considered the
- domestic legal framework’s impact on the availability of abortion, but the
- possible effect of international instruments signed by the State on this
- question has also been the subject of extensive public debate. Thus, the
- issue of abortion arose in the context of the ratification by the State of
- the Treaty on European Union (“the Maastricht Treaty”) and the Treaty of
- Lisbon. Each of these Treaties was voted upon by the Irish people,
- consulted by way of referendum. The Government of Ireland negotiated a
- protocol to the Maastricht Treaty, approved by the people by way of
- Referendum ensuring that nothing in the Treaty on European Union would
- affect the application in Ireland of Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution.
- The question of abortion also was a factor impacting on the electorate’s
- decision to vote against the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. As a
- result, the Irish Government sought and obtained certain guarantees from
- the European Council, including guarantees to the effect that the Treaty of
- Lisbon would not impact upon Article 40.3.3 of the Constitution. These
- guarantees contributed to the “Yes” vote in favour of the ratification of
- the Lisbon Treaty when the people were again consulted by way of referendum
- in October 2009.
- Accordingly, the constitutional and legislative framework in Ireland
- reflects the nuanced and proportionate approach to the considered views of
- the Irish Electorate on the profound moral question of the extent to which
- the right to life of the unborn should be protected and balanced against
- the rights of the mother.
- I want to turn to the dreadful situation of the survivors of symphysiotomy.
- The Government has decided to establish an ex-gratia scheme for the
- survivors. The main advantage of this is that it offers a more flexible
- solution in terms of the mix of pecuniary and non-pecuniary elements of any
- award to applicants. This non adversarial approach will also ensure that
- the women concerned will not have to pursue cases in the High Court or risk
- the burden of an adverse costs order. This seems particularly desirable
- given that a large percentage of the women are now aged between 75 and 91
- years of age. I should also say that the women are receiving and will
- continue to receive a range of health and social care supports from the
- State.
- These services include the provision of full General Medical Services
- eligibility on medical grounds, independent clinical assessments/advice
- (including, where requested a home assessment by an occupational therapist
- or physiotherapist), the arrangement of appropriate fast tracked follow-up
- care where possible, the provision of counselling, physiotherapy and home
- help services and the arrangement of home modifications where necessary.
- One of the elements of our existing employment equality framework that has
- come in for criticism is section 37 of Employment Equality Act 1998.
- Section 37 is the provision that allows religious-owned institutions to
- discriminate against employees or prospective employees if that is
- necessary to protect the religious ethos of the institution (i.e. a school
- or hospital). When this provision was introduced into our law in 1998, the
- Supreme Court had found, in an earlier judgment, that it represents a fair
- balance between the competing rights of freedom of religion and the right
- of employees to be protected from discrimination.
- Experience subsequently has shown that the balance has not been a fair one
- in practice – the provision has been described as having a chilling effect
- on LGBT teachers in particular. We have a commitment in our Programme for
- Government to ensure that
- “people of non-faith or minority religious backgrounds and publically
- identified LGBT people should not be deterred from training or taking
- up employment as teachers in the State”.
- Last year, the Government agreed to support a Private Members’ Bill that
- seeks to restore a fair balance to the equation. Given the constitutional
- implications, the Bill was of course examined very carefully by our
- Attorney General’s Office. Just last week, we completed that scrutiny
- process when the Government approved the Heads of a number of technical
- amendments to the Bill. These amendments will be published later in the
- year, with a view to the Bill being enacted before end-2014. The Bill as
- published is essentially sound and the amendments are largely technical in
- nature.
- As members know, we are also reforming our institutional arrangements for
- adjudication and redress in relation to employment and equality complaints.
- I am glad to inform the Committee that the Workplace Relations Commission
- Bill will be published very shortly.
- The key point I want to draw to your attention is that persons with
- potential claims under both employment equality legislation and equal
- status legislation that they will, on the merger of the Equality Tribunal
- into the new Workplace Relations Service, continue to be able to pursue
- formal complaints before the new body and that these complaints will be
- dealt with as effectively as by the Equality Tribunal. There will be no
- change to rights under the Equal Status Acts as a result of the structural
- reforms.
- I am delighted to be able to inform the Committee that the Government has
- decided to develop a national plan for the implementation of the UN Guiding
- Principles on Business and Human Rights.
- Turning to issues of gender equality, the Government accepts the need to
- amend the language in Article 41.2 of the Constitution on the role of women
- in the home. I have established a task force in my Department to look at
- these issues, collaborating with other Departments and the Office of the
- Attorney General as necessary, with a view to completing the task and
- reporting back to Government by 31 October 2014 and to preparing for a
- constitutional referendum at the earliest opportunity after that.
- I want to mention the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations
- of Cohabitants Act 2010, which extended the application of domestic
- violence orders to civil partners, and in 2011 we introduced further
- reforms, including that a parent may now apply for a safety order against
- the other parent of their child, even where the parents do not live
- together and may never have lived together. This ensures that the full
- protection of the law is available where access to a child is an occasion
- of intimidation or even violence between disputing parents. In addition,
- the protections of the Act are available on the same basis to unmarried
- opposite-sex couples and same-sex couples who have not registered a civil
- partnership; and couples who are not married or are not in a registered
- civil partnership are no longer required to have lived together for a
- particular minimum period of time before one of them can obtain a safety
- order against the other. The Irish Naturalisation and Immigration Service
- has published Immigration Guidelines for Victims of Domestic Violence. The
- guidelines apply to any foreign national with an immigration status that is
- dependent on another individual (Irish, EU or other citizens) and who is a
- victim of domestic violence.
- Members will recall that the Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee to
- establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen Laundries – the
- McAleese Report was published on 5 February 2013. The contents of the
- report have been fully accepted by the Irish Government as a comprehensive
- and objective report of the factual position prepared under the supervision
- of an independent chairperson. On 19 February 2013, on foot of the
- findings of the report, the Taoiseach made an apology in Dáil Éireann.
- We have put in place on an ex gratia basis, a scheme of payments and
- benefits for those women who were admitted to and worked in the Magdalen
- Laundries, St Mary’s Training Centre, Stanhope Street, and House of Mercy
- Training School, Summerhill, Wexford. The Office of the Ombudsman will
- provide an independent appeals procedure in line with the seventh
- recommendation of Mr Justice Quirke.
- New legislation expected to be enacted this year, the Fines (Payment and
- Recovery) Bill 2013, provides for a new fines recovery regime that will
- ensure to the greatest extent possible that persons are not committed to
- prison for an inability to pay fines. It provides for an attachment of
- earnings order in most cases where a fine defaulter is in employment or in
- receipt of an occupational pension. Provisions also allow for the making of
- a recovery order (directing a receiver to recover the fine or assets to the
- value of the fine) or a community service order as an alternative to
- imprisonment for defaulting.
- Turning to the issue of asylum, legislative reform aimed at establishing a
- single application procedure in the area of international protection
- remains a key priority which has been reconfirmed in the Statement of
- Government Priorities 2014-2016 agreed last week. The intention is that a
- Protection Bill will provide for the introduction of a single application
- procedure for the investigation of all grounds for protection and any other
- grounds presented by applicants seeking to remain in the State. This
- re-organisation of the protection application processing framework in this
- way should substantially simplify and streamline the existing arrangements
- and reduce the length of time persons have to spend in direct provision.
- The Government is also committed to ensuring that our policies in the area
- of integration remain capable of responding to current and future
- challenges which an increasingly diverse society presents Ireland in which
- non Irish nationals now make up 12% of our population. That is why my
- Department was tasked in March to lead a cross Government review of our
- integration strategy in order to ensure that our approach to integration in
- full keeping with the Government’s commitment to promote policies which
- promote social inclusion, equality, diversity and the participation of
- migrants in the economic, social, political and cultural lives of their
- communities. My intention is that the review will be completed and the
- Review Group will report to me in 2015.
- It is equally important that we address the particular needs of some of the
- more disadvantaged of our new communities. That applies in particular to
- the Roma community in Ireland. On 1 July last, I published the Report of
- the Inquiry by our Ombudsman for Children, Ms Emily Logan, into the
- circumstances surrounding the removal of two Roma children from their
- families. The Report highlighted the distress that was caused to these
- children and their families for which I, the Acting Garda Commissioner and
- our Prime Minister, Taoiseach Enda Kenny apologised.
- I should stress that the Report has not found that the Gardaí involved were
- motivated by conscious racism, or that there is evidence of
- institutionalised ethnic profiling. Indeed, in relation to the
- aforementioned Tallaght Case, the Report highlights the Garda Officer’s
- extensive community policing work and his voluntary engagement with
- minority communities.
- The Report does make some important recommendations which will guard
- against similar situations arising in the future and on how government
- services might better cater for the needs of the Roma community which I on
- behalf of the Government have accepted. I have established an
- Implementation Group to oversee the actions being rolled-out in response to
- the Report’s recommendations and to report to me by the end of the year.
- These are some of the main changes and developments since we provided you
- with our written replies. We have a lot of positive developments to report
- on, but I have tried to keep my opening remarks short to allow for a full
- engagement with you and to leave as much time as possible for your
- questions.
- Thank you Chairperson and members for your attention. I am looking forward
- to our engagement this afternoon and tomorrow morning and to addressing
- your questions and expanding on the necessarily concise material we have
- provided already.
- ENDS
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