Rights, Freedoms and Repression Woman whose soup run fed 250 homeless in Dublin told to cease or face €300k fine 21:35 Feb 07 2 comments Germany cannot give up it's Nazi past - Germany orders Holocaust survivor institutionalized over Cov... 23:31 Jan 14 1 comments Crisis in America: Deaths Up 40% Among Those Aged 18-64 Based on Life Insurance Claims for 2021 Afte... 23:16 Jan 06 0 comments Protests over post-vaccination deaths spread across South Korea 23:18 Dec 26 0 comments Chris Hedges: The execution of Julian Assange 22:19 Dec 19 1 comments more >>Blog Feeds
Public InquiryInterested in maladministration. Estd. 2005RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony Waiting for SIPO Anthony
Human Rights in IrelandPromoting Human Rights in Ireland
Lockdown Skeptics
Foreigners Three Times as Likely to be Arrested for Sex Offences as British Citizens Mon Jan 06, 2025 13:30 | Will Jones
Inept ?Fact Check? by Science Feedback Shines Further Light on U.K. Met Office?s Junk and Fabricated... Mon Jan 06, 2025 11:32 | Chris Morrison
Elon Musk, Undeterred by Days of German Political Hyperventilation, Continues to Promote Fascism and... Mon Jan 06, 2025 09:00 | Eugyppius
The Key Lesson of 2024: In Labour?s Post-Riots Britain, the Truth Must no Longer be Seen or Heard Mon Jan 06, 2025 07:00 | Steven Tucker
News Round-Up Mon Jan 06, 2025 01:14 | Richard Eldred
Voltaire NetworkVoltaire, international editionVoltaire, International Newsletter N?113 Fri Dec 20, 2024 10:42 | en Pentagon could create a second Kurdish state Fri Dec 20, 2024 10:31 | en How Washington and Ankara Changed the Regime in Damascus , by Thierry Meyssan Tue Dec 17, 2024 06:58 | en Statement by President Bashar al-Assad on the Circumstances Leading to his Depar... Mon Dec 16, 2024 13:26 | en Voltaire, International Newsletter N?112 Fri Dec 13, 2024 15:34 | en |
The Irish government don't want you to know about
national |
rights, freedoms and repression |
press release
Monday December 07, 2009 12:24 by Amnesty Ireland - Amnesty International commassistant at amnesty dot ie
The Irish government can be taken to the UN for failing to deliver social, economic and political rights it guarantees to all its citizens. Twenty years ago, on 8 December 2009, the Irish Government ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). They refuse to re-ratify it, and have failed to deliver on it for the past twenty years. Twenty years ago tomorrow the Irish Government ratified a legally binding international treaty guaranteeing everyone living in Ireland fundamental human rights. Amnesty International Ireland today described the treaty as “one of the country’s best kept secrets” and launched an online campaign encouraging people to take action in support of their human rights. |
View Comments Titles Only
save preference
Comments (5 of 5)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5Need to discuss precisely what we DO mean when we say "X has a right to Y"
It is clear that this means "No Z can take Y away from X or place an obstruction between X getting Y".
It is far less clear that it means "Z has an obligation to provide Y to X"
STOP -- don't take me wrong here. I am not saying that this shouldn't be so, not saying that there isn't an obligation to provide Y to X. But I am saying that this wouldn't come just from "X has a right to Y" but from the much stronger "X has an entitlement to Y".
And even in that case, you can't necessarily make the jump from SOMEBODY must have the obligation to privide Y to X to lay that obligation where you please. You need some additional assumptions about "assignment of duties" becuase otherwise you can't get from "somebody has this duty" to "HE (or she) has this duty".
All good points there but a lot of what you're asking for has been laid out. The treaty guarantees the rights. The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights monitors the implementation of the right and interprets it through what are called General Comments. Every State is also obliged to periodically report to the Committee on what it has done to deliver these rights.
So the mechanisms, structures and interpretations you're asking for are, in many cases, laid out in Committee decisions or comments.
More here: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cescr/
Shell to sea was informed 2 years ago that the civil servants studying the Arhus convention found it satisfactory but that the politicians did not want to ratify it. Eamon Ryan knows all about it but chooses to ignore it.
It would be great if Amnesty International added this to their agenda as well.
THE IRISH PEOPLE ARE BEING CONNED BY FIANNA FAIL CONTINUOUSLY. WHEN WILL THEY WAKE UP?
"We’re supposed to have a right to free primary education but 74 per cent of parents are asked for a contribution to their school’s running costs every year"
Key word here is 'asked'. Not required. Not that terrible that a school that relies on minimum funds to ask for a voluntary contribution.
"We’re supposed to have a right to housing but four and a half thousand people are homeless at any one time, about a thousand of whom are children"
Homelessness isn't just a matter of no free housing, it is a complex social problem that cannot be solved by offering people houses. Ask any homeless advocate group.
"We’re supposed to have a right to health but hundreds of children are detained in adult mental health facilities because there is not enough child appropriate accommodation"
Not exactly denying the right to health by providing the same services to children as provided to adults. Not appropriate, but as long as the govt provides a minimum standard of care they aren't in violation the treaty
"Homelessness isn't just a matter of no free housing, it is a complex social problem that cannot be solved by offering people houses. Ask any homeless advocate group."
Yes it is. You could also ask anyone who's worked on housing rights issues. Nowhere is 'free housing' being proposed as the one and only solution to the issue.
"Not exactly denying the right to health by providing the same services to children as provided to adults. Not appropriate, but as long as the govt provides a minimum standard of care they aren't in violation the treaty"
Yes they are. The right to health as explained in General Comment 14 specifically states that health care must be appropriate, not minimum, and under progressive realisation (Article Two of ICESCR) the achievement of the right must be done progressively. In other words if you can't deliver the right straight away you need to prove progress towards it. That's not 'minimum'.
http://www.aspire-irl.org/General%20Comment%2014.pdf
I get the point you're trying to make, that it's a lot more complicated than simply saying the right exists and you're right. But where I think you're wrong is the suggestion that decades of human rights law and decisions haven't already covered and gone into a lot of these areas.