One of Europe's top rights watchdogs has warned Ireland over the lack of accommodation for Travellers and poor living conditions at halting sites.

Former Limerick mayor John Gilligan has welcomed a planned initiative by the International Federation for Human Rights to seek fundamental rights for deprived parts of the city.

The appalling conditions in which many low-income families in Ireland live breaches their human rights, according to a number of organisations which have forwarded evidence to European Committee of Social Rights in Strasbourg.