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ICCL calls on Noel Grealish TD to clarify comments made at Oughterard meeting

Dublin, 12 September 2019

Ireland has a duty under international law to provide protection to those who are fleeing persecution and all those claiming asylum have a right to a fair hearing. To offer protection to members of one group over another would be clearly discriminatory and any suggestion of such practice should be strongly and widely condemned. 

Everybody has the right to freedom of speech but there are limits where that speech might constitute hate speech. Public representatives should be mindful of promoting a society which is respectful of everyone. Racist speech from an elected representative can never be accepted. In light of this, ICCL calls on Deputy Grealish to immediately clarify his comments last night and if the reports of his comments are accurate to offer an immediate apology. 

There is currently no appropriate law to deal with hate crime in Ireland. Recent, high-profile instances of hate crime in Galway and around the country underline the importance of our call for legislation against hate crime to be drawn up as a matter of urgency.

Sign the petition to outlaw hate crime here: https://my.uplift.ie/petitions/love-not-hate-unite-to-legislate-against-hate-crime

Join ICCL in the fight against hate! iccl.ie/join

ICCL publishes follow-up report to UN Committee Against Torture

ICCL Follow-up report to UNCAT

This report by the ICCL was submitted to the United Nations Committee Against Torture (CAT) on 26 November 2018 and forms part of the process of ‘follow-up’ to the CAT’s second set of Concluding Observations on Ireland, published in August 2017. The CAT designated three of the recommendations in its August 2017 Concluding Observations as ‘follow-up’ issues, requiring a response from the Irish Government within one year.

In this report, the ICCL:

  1. Demands that Ireland ratify the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and create a National Preventive Mechanism that independently inspects all places of detention in Ireland, including de facto detention in health and social care settings, and in Direct Provision.
  2. Calls for swift changes to the powers and functions of the Garda complaints mechanism, and criticises the secrecy that characterises many investigations into alleged Garda misconduct.
  3. Rejects the Government’s repeated claim that it knows of ‘no credible evidence’ that systematic torture or ill-treatment, or criminal abuse, was perpetrated in Magdalene Laundries and calls for a truth-telling process, and proper accountability and redress.

The ICCL’s report to the CAT in 2017 contributed to the CAT’s Concluding Observations along with the reports of numerous other NGOs working in Ireland.

 

The Irish Government’s Follow-up Report to the CAT was published in August 2018. This report by the ICCL provides further information to the CAT in relation to the three ‘follow-up’ issues.

Ratify OPCAT and allow inspection of direct provision centres: ICCL

Dublin, 26 June 2018

 

Ratify OPCAT and allow inspection of direct provision centres: ICCL

 

On International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) is calling for the ratification of the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture (OPCAT). We are also calling for the establishment of a National Preventive Mechanism (NPM), as per the OPCAT and in consultation with civil society, which would inspect and report on conditions in all places of deprivation of liberty in the State. Ireland signed up to OPCAT in 2007 and is the only EU country which has not ratified the treaty.

 

Director of ICCL Liam Herrick said:

“this is an urgent call that we’re making, given the 2015 findings of the European Committee on the Prevention of Torture that there was evidence of ill-treatment in Garda custody. Indeed last week’s collapse of the trial of Damien McLaughlin has highlighted the need for better protection of suspects’ rights whilst in custody, not only to ensure the rights of innocent people, but also to ensure that cases like this do not collapse under the weight of questionable evidence.”

 

The OPCAT and NPM would also allow for inspection of places such as psychiatric institutions, direct provision centres and nursing homes, all places where people are routinely deprived of their liberty, sometimes arbitrarily.

 

Mr Herrick said:

“In a country such as Ireland, with such a chequered, sad history of arbitrarily depriving people of their freedom, it is urgent that we begin to allow independent oversight and inspection of places where people are detained, arbitrarily or otherwise”.

 

ENDS/

Notes for editors:

In 2017, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission commissioned research and made evidence-based recommendations for Ireland to ratify the OPCAT:

https://www.ihrec.ie/app/uploads/2017/09/Ireland-and-the-Optional-Protocol-to-the-UN-Convention-against-Torture.pdf

 

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