TWO IRISH HUMAN rights organisations are to address UN member states today to warn of what they say is a risk of \u201cbacksliding\u201d on human rights and equality in Ireland.<\/p>\n
Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC) and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) will make their case as part of a UN examination of Ireland\u2019s human rights record.<\/p>\n
FLAC is due to deliver a joint statement on behalf of both organisations at the United Nations in Geneva this morning, ahead of Ireland\u2019s latest Universal Periodic Review (UPR).<\/p>\n
The UPR is a process run by the UN Human Rights Council which examines the human rights record of every UN member state roughly every four-and-a-half years.<\/p>\n
This morning\u2019s pre-session allows civil society organisations to brief diplomats on issues they believe should be raised when Ireland undergoes its formal review.<\/p>\n
FLAC and the ICCL will focus on four areas: civil legal aid, access to the courts, equality and discrimination, and Traveller and Roma rights.<\/p>\n
The organisations argue that progress on a number of commitments made following Ireland\u2019s previous UN review has either stalled or, in some cases, gone backwards.<\/p>\n
Christopher Bowes, FLAC\u2019s Policy and Public Affairs Manager, said the \u201chuman rights and equality agenda in Ireland has stalled if not regressed\u201d in the five years since the State\u2019s last review.<\/p>\n
Among the issues being raised is the government\u2019s proposed reform of judicial review.<\/p>\n
Under proposals published earlier this year, applicants would face tighter deadlines for taking cases and higher thresholds before a court could grant them a remedy. The changes would also introduce a public-interest test and restrict who can bring a judicial review to people directly affected by a decision and with a sufficient interest in the matter.<\/p>\n
The organisations argue that changes contained in the General Scheme of the Civil Law Reform Bill 2025 could restrict the ability of disadvantaged people to take cases relating to access to public services such as housing and social security.<\/p>\n
They are calling on the State not to proceed with the proposals in their current form and to examine their potential impact before making changes.<\/p>\n
Bowes said the proposed legislation \u201cmay block disadvantaged groups from taking cases about access to basic public services like housing and education\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat judicial review legislation should not proceed,\u201d Bowes said.<\/p>\n
The groups will also tell UN member states that Ireland\u2019s civil legal aid system is \u201cat crisis-point and at risk of collapse\u201d.<\/p>\n
A review of the system was completed in April last year, but the statement says no substantive reforms have since been introduced and no reform plan has been published.<\/p>\n
It also says people can face waits of more than a year for a first appointment with a legal aid lawyer.<\/p>\n
FLAC and the ICCL are also calling for progress on proposed reforms to Ireland\u2019s equality laws.<\/p>\n
They say existing anti-discrimination legislation does not adequately cover the State in areas including housing, healthcare, education and social security.<\/p>\n
A draft Equality Bill would, among other changes, increase the maximum compensation available under the Equal Status Acts from \u20ac15,000 to \u20ac75,000, but has yet to be passed.\n<\/p>\n
Homelessness warning<\/p>\n
The organisations will also raise concerns about legislation passed last month introducing residence conditions for access to social housing and emergency homeless accommodation.<\/p>\n
Their submission warns that the changes are likely to increase homelessness among non-Irish nationals and minority ethnic and migrant communities, including Travellers and Roma.<\/p>\n
It also notes that more than 1,900 Traveller families are living on unauthorised halting sites or in overcrowded or shared accommodation, according to the most recent official figures cited in the submission.<\/p>\n
The organisations have criticised the fact that no Traveller or Roma group has been given speaking time at this morning\u2019s pre-session, describing this as \u201cregrettable and unprecedented\u201d.<\/p>\n
ICCL executive director Joe O\u2019Brien said Ireland was \u201cnot immune to the global trend of backsliding on human rights and democratic freedoms\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen worrying developments recently in Ireland, including a stalling of equality and anti-discrimination efforts, and moves which would hinder people\u2019s access to justice,\u201d O\u2019Brien said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIreland needs to course-correct and recommit to robustly protecting everyone\u2019s rights and freedoms.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TWO IRISH HUMAN rights organisations are to address UN member states today to warn of what they say…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":655271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,277064,32380,6,14382,8684,138795,19,17,277065,11,12,15,16,5,277066,2423,7,8,23039,4913],"class_list":["post-655270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-flac","tag-geneva","tag-headlines","tag-homelessness","tag-human-rights","tag-iccl","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-judicials-reviews","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-swiss-exchange","tag-switzerland","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-un","tag-united-nations"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}