I am pleased to have an opportunity to raise on the Adjournment the way in which the Government has dealt with appointments to the Human Rights Commission.
The Human Rights Commission is a very important organisation. Its establishment arises from the Good Friday Agreement and it is governed by the UN Paris principles. I am very concerned, as are many organisations, that in way in which appointments to the commission have been announced the issues of accountability and process have been disregarded. I will raise a number of points in relation to this matter.
The Government has taken a cut and paste approach to appointments to the Human Rights Commission. This is demeaning and humiliating to those already appointed and to those who may yet be appointed. There were reports yesterday of a corrective climbdown. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about this. If it is true, it is a belated admission by the Minister that, despite written advance warnings to him from Fine Gael, he still got it completely wrong.
The ICCL has rightly said that the Government showed a total disregard for the process of transparency in the appointments mechanism which it only accepted with the greatest reluctance following considerable pressure from the human rights sector. I have a letter signed by a group of NGOs who support this view. The distinguished selection committee for members which advised the Minister was chaired by Dr. Whitaker. It included prominent activists in the human rights and voluntary sectors. It shortlisted 16 people out of 177 applicants, and recommended eight people with unanimous priority. The Minister then asked only one of these eight to join the commission. This was a contemptuous way to treat Dr. Whitaker and his committee and, indeed, the entire procedure. Why set up a procedure like this if one is going to subvert in the final analysis?
Already it has been reported that one of the eight people appointed by the Minister is considering her position, presumably because she is deeply embarrassed by the Minister's clumsy and inept handling of the issue. Does this mean resignations before the commission, a vitally important body, in terms of civil and individual rights, even begins its work? To compound the situation, Mr. Justice Barrington also said last weekend that he was surprised at the appointments process.
Why did the Government ignore the recommendations of the selection committee and why has the Minister failed to give reasons for their actions last week? What view was taken by the selection committee on the applications of the four nominees added to the list by the Government? Does the Government intend to take some action to change the situation or will it remain as it is?
The belated course correction, if it is true, seems to suggest that people he has already appointed are not good enough and, therefore, need new colleagues, and yet those likely new colleagues were not deemed good enough by him the first time around to merit appointment. It is typical of the Minister that neither the original announcement of the Human Rights Commission last week nor his proposals put forward yesterday can be found on his Department's website.
I am appalled that such an important body, with such huge implications for human and civil rights, the Human Rights Commission, has been handled in this way by the Government. It suggests that, despite all the scandals this year, nothing has been learned about appointments to public bodies and the need for transparency and openness. The Government set up a procedure which it then did not follow. I look forward to the Minister of State's reply.