This election has been dominated by economic issues. Human rights issues tend to be omitted from reporting of the party manifestos. By way of rectifying that omission, the table below provides answers, derived from the major political parties’ manifestos, to 15 key human rights questions. (Zoom is on the bottom left).
Party Manifestos and Human Rights
Continue reading “General Election 2011: Human Rights and the Party Manifestos”
Having listened on Channel 4 to Enda Kenny describing Ireland as ‘the laughing stock of Europe’ and the situation being complete madness as well as BBC News’ Ireland Correspondent Mark Simpson commenting on Ireland’s potential embarrassment, I thought it prudent to see whether the international media, firstly cared about the ongoing saga within the Irish Government and secondly, whether they also were commenting on possible shame for Ireland, whether any commentators actually decided to say Ireland should feel embarrassed and finally whether Ireland is, in fact, a laughing-stock.
The Economist’s headline is ‘meltdown’. It goes on to describe events as they unfolded over the past days, noting the bailout and the potential passage of the Finance Bill. While it eschews any talk of embarrassment, it does mention the ‘poison chalice’ of Fianna Fáil leadership. Time magazine prefers to headline with, ‘The Beginning of the End for Ireland’s Ruling Party‘. It again mentions the Finance Bill but also the general chaos in Irish politics. It also mentions that a new Taoiseach would be in place in time to give the US President a bowl of shamrock on St. Patrick’s Day, not necessarily a sober note, though they were quoting former T.D. Ivan Yates. Continue reading “International Coverage of Political Events in Ireland”
We are pleased to welcome the latest in our series of reponses to the judgment in A, B & C v. Ireland. This post is written by Dr. Morgan Healey of the Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand. The PhD research to which he refers was published here.
Almost a month after the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECHR) held that Ireland had violated the human rights of one of the plaintiffs in the ABC v Ireland case, there is little indication of how the Irish government will deal with the ruling. What can be almost certain is that few politicians will be leading the charge for legislative change. In true consensus-driven political fashion, Fine Gael leader, Enda Kenny, once again refused to take a clear lead on the issue [see Irish Times article, 28/12/2010]. Abrogating his responsibility as a legislative official, he said that this topic should be dealt with through the all-party committee process and could result in a broad spectrum of recommendations, not least of which might be through another referendum.
Continue reading “Irish Women Politicians and Abortion: Hope for change after the ECHR ruling”
Yesterday’s High Court decision, Doherty v Government of Ireland has resulted in global coverage of the Irish Government’s reluctance to engage with democracy. This is a brief overview of what has been said.
The Financial Times, unsurprisingly discussed the issue together with the dire state of the country’s finances and the Government’s response to it. Reuters followed a similar pattern, mentioning the possibility of the IMF intervening should the budget not achieve the aims of organising the country’s finances to the satisfaction of the markets. The BBC put slightly more emphasis on the fact that it was a Sinn Féin councillor who succeeded in winning the case, but also focused on some of detail of Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns judgment.
The Washington Post focused on the student protests regarding student fees together with the High Court judgment. Continue reading “Global Coverage of Ireland's shaky democracy”
This post will be updated as matters develop today. Although there are of course many issues within the revised programme for government, our focus here will be on human rights related matters.
As the Green Party hold their party meeting this morning to vote on both the revised programme for government on which agreement was reach late yesterday evening and the proposals for the National Asset Management Agency, we still do not know what the contents of the revised programme for government are. There are some leaks reported in today’s Irish Times. In particular, it is claimed that it contains a commitment to 500 new teaching jobs (with a view to maintaining or lowering the teacher : student ratio) with recruitment to begin immediately and to not introducing third level fees. On electoral reform there is said to be agreement on the introduction of a system of vouched expenses for parliamentarians and a ban on corporate donations to political parties, both of which are very welcome.
Beyond that, however, we are largely in the dark-the proposed revised programme was not made widely available last night and there doesn’t seem to be anything leaking out of the Green Party’s meeting this morning. And so we continue to wait to hear whether the Government will fall this weekend and if not whether any commitments to human rights organisations have been included in the programme. However, if money can be found (as is suggested) for the re-housing of the Abbey Theatre in the GPO and the maintenance of the Irish Film Board one would hope that money can be found to ensure vital human rights infrastructure such as the Irish Human Rights Commission and Equality Authority can achieve the highest possible levels of functionality.
UPDATE 11.52am The revised (or ‘renewed’, apparently) programme can be accessed here.
Here are a few of the spotlight issues with human rights implications, but there are enormous amounts of commitments that have important implications:
Nothing as far as I can see about committing to maintaining and adequately funding human rights institutions. If the programme is approved, we will be commenting on how these various commitments might be operationalised here on HRinI.
UPDATE 12:13 There is now a live blog from inside the Convention which you can view here.
For Twitter fans, the tag is #pfg
UPDATE 13:45 Mary White was on RTE Radio 1 at lunchtime today speaking about the revised programme for government. The conversation was primarily on education and White claimed that the agreement to not introduce third level fees, to provide further educational psychologists and to hire 500 new teachers over the life of the government (although, by the way, when retirements andcontract-non-renewals are factored in this may not be as significant as is being represented) was a major achievement by the Green Party. She said there has been no agreement on social welfare cuts in Budget 2009.
UPDATE 19:16 The Green Party has voted to support the revised Programme for Government. RTÉ reports that the margin was more than 4:1 in favour of the reform programme. You can expect commentary on the various rights-related aspects of the programme here on HRinI over the next few days and weeks.
As previously mentioned here, this week has seen the government partners engage in a renegotiation of the programme for government. While we were made aware before the commencement of the talks that the Green Party had an extensive ‘wish list’ and that commitment to human rights and rights-related organisations featured on that list, there has been something of a veil of silence surrounding developments since then (also noted by Ferdinand von Prondzynski this morning). This morning’s Irish Times, however, informs us that education (especially teacher:pupil ratios) and electoral reform (especially a reduction in the number of TDs) have moved to the centre stage of the negotiations. Of course, both of these areas have human rights implications too–effective education, effective representative political systems etc… are important for the creation of conditions in which people can exercise their rights to the fullest degree–but they are decidedly long-term in terms of having embedded human rights impacts. The early talk of insisting upon the adequate funding of the Equality Authority, for example, seems to have quietened to a whisper and it is difficult to avoid the suspicion that either agreement on this was easily reached or it has slipped to the bottom of the agenda. We continue to wait to see the details of the proposed agreement. The Green Party is scheduled to meet tomorrow to consider whether the renegotiated programme will be approved by 2/3 of the members (the margin needed to keep the Green Party in government) and we can expect to see some details tonight or in the morning.
UPDATE: RTE Radio’s 9am news informs me that Éamon Ryan (Green Party, Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources) has announced that unless agreement is reached by lunchtime today the Green Partyministers will resign. They had not reached agreement by lunchtime. They did not resign…
Now that the referendum to amend the Constitution in respect of the Lisbon Treaty has been passed by a 2/3 majority, domestic political attention can finally be focused elsewhere. Top of the agenda this week is surely the process of renegotiation of the Programme for Government between the Green Party and Fianna Fáil with a document submitted from Mary Harney who, of course, is now party-less following the demise of the Progressive Democrats. The Green Party has made it clear that equality and human rights and, particularly, securing budgets for organisations committed thereto is within their agenda for this week’s talks.
There is little doubt but that this process is being driven by the Green Party whose leader, John Gormley, has said that unless the revised programme for government is passed by a 2/3 majority of the Green Party at conference next weekend the party will be obliged to pull out of government, thereby most likely triggering a general election. (For commentary see this piece in the Sunday Tribune) Continue reading “Equality and Human Rights on the Political Agenda”
From today’s (22/09/2009) Irish Times comes news that Ireland will not be signing the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). A group of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have condemned this decision, noting:
“The Optional Protocol is not about obtaining compensation, nor is it about trying to use the UN to embarrass national governments; rather it seeks to enable the UN to work with individuals and governments to find solutions.”
Fianna Fail T.D. Tom Kitt has also criticised the decision of the Government for its failure to sign and/or ratify the optional protocol. Mr. Kitt stated “The Government would … demonstrate its clear intention and determination to protect the human rights of Ireland’s population as we enter a challenging economic period ahead.”
