Irish groups watch live as Ireland grilled over human rights

Legal rights group FLAC, part of the Your Rights Right Now coalition, submitted an independent civil society report on the human rights situation in Ireland since Ireland’s review in 2011.

The seventeen groups which contributed were invited to a live screening of the Geneva examination in Dublin today.

Attending the screening this afternoon, Ciarán Finlay, FLAC legal and policy officer, said: “This new government has a real chance to make an historic stand on basic rights. It has the opportunity now to set a standard in those areas which are so important for people’s daily lives – like housing, healthcare, education, social security, access to justice – that allows people to live in dignity.

“FLAC, together with all the civil society organisations which have contributed to the UPR report, sincerely hopes the government will rise to this challenge of putting human rights at the heart of its policymaking, especially on budgetary decisions.”

FLAC expects that a range of other relevant issues will be raised by country representatives during today’s examination, including greater legal protection for socio-economic rights, expansion of the civil legal aid scheme and ratification of the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.