There are a few points to make and I will make an immediate link to the one made by Senator Daly. It is very important that the human rights perspective be launched in development studies as an academic discipline in Ireland and also as a practice on the part of Irish Aid. Two issues arise in this regard, the first of which concerns the structure in respect of human rights commissions, which I strongly support. The other concerns human rights practice in the operations of development workers; I refer to a handbook of practice. This distinction is in the Norwegian White Paper on development, which is probably the White Paper that took the human rights perspective furthest, even if it did not reach a conclusion in terms of conditions. It is a very valuable and important exercise nevertheless.
I very much welcome the commitment of the Minister of State and former Ministers for Foreign Affairs to my idea of having some internships or scholarships that would end the false division between volunteering in the short term and academic training in the long term. It would be invaluable to link these. Given the scant resources available to the Irish Human Rights Commission, it should make its submission in the short term on the appropriateness of some of the scholarships being in the human rights and development area. I believe the Minister of State would view this positively.
I also note, as I have done previously, I am an honorary adjunct professor at the Irish Centre for Human Rights at NUI, Galway. While it does not affect anything I say; it is a fact. As for a point on which I may differ with Senator Daly, it would be extremely difficult to impose a kind of human rights compliance as a condition. While I certainly believe it can be built in that one should seek to achieve it, a condition would run into difficulties. I greatly disagree with those who say, in respect of Irish Aid for example, that the conditions should meet all kinds of high levels of performance. One would end up by not being able to be present at all. However, our development of human rights must be more focused than a simple commitment to civil society. I draw attention, for example, to the manner in which concepts such as good governance have been taken and examined by some of the Scandinavian countries. Good governance includes both institutes of public administration or governing public funding and features such as village decision-making on emergence into civil society, poor women in villages and so forth. Moreover, whether people in the developed world realise it, one will find people who believe their human rights are revealed, rather than discovered through the Enlightenment. That is, they are Islamic and believe they have been revealed in the Qur'an. This issue will be of great significance in respect of human rights in the future.
I also strongly agree with the suggestion that a sub-committee on human rights with an autonomous existence separate from any Department is a good idea. The Irish system, in which ratification does not take place until domestic legislation has been put in place, has merits. However, it means, for example, that in nearly all cases, the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, which has a long list, takes the leading role. Important issues such as, for example, the new United Nations convention on disability, will take time before compliance in respect of legislation is achieved. Although Ireland still is just short of ratifying the United Nations convention against corruption, this has not stopped us from giving lectures to the receiving countries about their corruption. I also refer to the optional protocol to the United Nations convention against torture.
While I do not intend to take up much time, I wish to make some points arising from the presentation. It is harder at present to speak about prisoners' rights than at any time. I was a member of the MacBride commission in the second half of the 1970s, which was succeeded by the Whitaker commission. However, slopping out still takes place in prisons. I have spoken recently about it in respect of the Dáil consultation on Thornton Hall. I also agree with Ms Alice Leahy's point. The idea, for example, that one could not go on a methadone treatment programme unless one already had been on one before going inside constitutes a serious break. In addition, those who work in prisons have a difficult task and it should be made easier for them.
When one contrasts the late 1970s with the present day, there then was far greater interest in non-custodial sentences or options than obtains at present. I note the Irish Human Rights Commission has commented on the number of prison places being increased to a certain level. What does this reveal in respect of the future of penal policy? I am highly concerned about this issue. While it is not a matter of locking away those who are perceived to be troublesome, the public mood must be enlightened regarding non-custodial options. Far better education and training is needed in the prisons and better integrated availability of medical services certainly is required.
Moreover, the decision to put prisons in the wilderness, thereby making it difficult for people to visit, is antediluvian in its thinking. Studies of the American prison system, where shuttle buses bring visitors to the prison, show it has the sole function of stigmatising the relatives, as well as the person who is in prison. While I hope it is not a national aim to achieve the United States level of having 1% of the population in prison, certainly as I consider the proposals, I find the absence of anything progressive in penal policy to be extremely worrying.
I refer to the question of the submission of the Irish Human Rights Commission regarding the Government's compliance. At a meeting similar to this, attended by Dr. Joshua Castellino and me, the former Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Michael McDowell, made a presentation in respect of the status of the Traveller population. I contested the basic document produced by the Government, which was based on Hilary Reynolds Tovey's suggestion in her book that the Traveller community is not a separate cultural entity. I disagree with that. Self-perception of a group, as well as a series of other indicators, were not taken into account.
However, I refer to an issue the Irish Human Rights Commission will face and to which in fairness it has adverted in respect of its longer shadow report, that is, whether the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is something to which the citizen can go the full distance. Certainly, the former Minister, Mr. McDowell, took the view that one could converse with him as far as the boundary of the Irish Constitution. It was suggested that the Constitution offers a category of rights in respect of equality and that it is a waste of time for me to talk about, for example, recognition of ethnic difference or whatever in respect of international agreements.. We must go back and surmount that obstacle.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions has recently become interested in Article 23 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which recognised that "everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests". The Sub-Committee on Human Rights probably will receive a request from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, which may wish to make a presentation on that subject. However, whatever interpretation may have been put on the cases that were heard by the European Court of Justice, in all the judgments, including the Rüffert and Laval cases and others, the right to collective representation was considered to be a fundamental right.
I am interested in a subject about which I have been receiving letters, that is, in respect of changes to maritime law. Every now and again, the international seafarers' representative body must go aboard ships to rescue Latvians, Lithuanians and others who are on board ships that sail under flags of convenience. The proposed changes in the Irish law probably will be limited in application to the fewer than 30 ships that will sail under the Irish flag. This raises an issue. As long ago as 1948, the International Labour Organisation, ILO, agreed a convention regarding internationally-accepted rights of workers. Two such conventions were signed by Ireland in 1948. I am not a lawyer and therefore cannot remember whether they required ratification at all. The ILO conventions almost flowed automatically into Irish law. However, they appear to have disappeared. I am very interested in the ability to vindicate the rights of anyone who is a worker, wherever he or she may be, in Ireland.
The final issue pertains to the study and something valuable the Chairman could request. A study on the resources available to foreign affairs committees already has been produced. It would be useful for the sub-committee on human rights to seek resources from the Oireachtas Library, which has new research staff, to conduct a comparative examination of the resources available to human rights commissions and human rights committees, as well as to other committees and so forth so that perhaps we could improve our——
