Genocide is defined as “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”. 

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The first Traveller to receive an honorary doctorate from UCC has accepted the award on behalf of her community and Ireland’s countless activists.

TDs have slammed the Government’s planned citizens’ assembly which is set to look into repealing the Eighth Amendment.

Mick Wallace TD writes that his bill to permit termination in cases of fatal foetal abnormality is necessary to end a human rights violation, and does not pose a constitutional problem

Children’s Minister Katerine Zappone has said the views of women who have had abortions should be taken into consideration when deciding how to change the law.

The Government is to defy the United Nations by stalling on abortion reform, despite a condemnation of the existing laws as “cruel, inhuman and degrading”.

A UN committee will today hear that a great deal more work needs to be done on behalf of Irish children, writes Emily Logan

Regarding references to the Special Criminal Court in your editorial (Irish Examiner, December 21), I would like to make a few points.

A High Court judge has rejected a claim by a 76-year old woman that an unnecessary symphysiotomy was performed on her 12 days before the birth of her first baby at a Dublin hospital in 1963.

A round-up of this morning’s top news.

Last summer, the chair of the UN Human Rights Committee described Ireland’s human rights record, particularly in relation to women and children, as ‘quite a collection’.

The UN has repeatedly criticised Ireland’s human rights record on a range of fronts. Some of those failures and what the State is doing to address them are listed here.

Ireland is eight years late in submitting a major report to the UN on tackling discrimination against women.

Slowly and forensically, layer by granular layer, the human rights treaty bodies have been building a three-dimensional model of Ireland’s compliance with its international obligations, writes Mark Kelly.

Proposals in the symphysiotomy redress scheme requiring victims accepting a payment to “indemnify and hold harmless” those responsible have been sharply criticised.

OFFLINE and unplugged during August, it takes a moment for the ‘more than a vessel’ hashtag to contextualise.

A grave just discovered by the Justice for Magdalenes group shows that, in one plot in North Dublin alone, a third of the woman buried remained at the Magdalene laundry for more than 50 years.

If ever there was a tipping point in the national historic drama of Irish abortion laws, this latest horror is it, writes Rachel Doyle

No other issue is as divisive as abortion. You either, even if reluctantly, regard the procedure as a right or maybe a last option in extreme circumstances. Others regard it, and it seems that they always will, as an abomination — many people consider it an affront to their religious and social beliefs. There may be shades of grey on the issue but the middle ground is hardly less populated on any other issue.

A group of protesting asylum seekers who claimed to be on hunger strike at an accommodation centre in Co Limerick have been transferred to other asylum hostels, management at the privately operated Mount Trenchard centre have said.

One of the most persistent and beneficial aspects of our relationship with the EU has been the opportunity membership offers citizens who believe they have been denied their rights by our Government or by our courts to seek redress, or at least a hearing.

The Government has been accused of allowing Ireland to fall even further behind European nations in defending women’s rights and protecting against violence.

The UN Human Rights Committee’s criticism of Ireland’s abortion law is ideologically contaminated reinterpretation of solemn treaty obligations to "provide appropriate legal protection before as well as after birth’ to every child "without exception".

One in four prosecutions for rape and serious sexual offences were dropped with no explanation last year, according to court figures.

Half of the women at one Magdalene laundry in the 1950s and 1960s never left the institution again but died years later behind the convent walls, according to research which strongly contradicts the Martin McAleese report.

The Survivors of Symphysiotomy group, who have steadfastly refused to subscribe to redress schemes suggested by the Government, described themselves as "vindicated" by a UN report which called for an independent and thorough investigation into the practice and fair and adequate compensation.

Minister of State for Justice and Equality Aodhán Ríordán is to bring a damning United Nations’ report on Ireland’s human rights record to the "heart of the Oireachtas".

The UN Human Rights Committee says the Government should carry out a "prompt, independent and thorough investigation" into symphysiotomy, and says those that carried it out should be prosecuted and punished.

The UN Human Rights Committee will tomorrow deliver its final verdict on Ireland’s human rights record in light of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which the State ratified in 1989.

Tánaiste Joan Burton has signalled there will be no further changes to abortion laws during the lifetime of this Government, despite strong criticism from the United Nations.

AFTER the Nazi medical experiments on human beings, the Nuremberg code was drawn up to prevent such barbarity happening again. At its core was that anybody being subjected to medical experiments must give their consent.

The UN Human Rights Committee has expressed concern at the treatment of the survivors of symphsiotomy.

Welcome to your Tuesday morning briefing. Let us ensure you’re up to speed on what’s happening and are prepared for the day ahead.

Last week the Government announced the establishment of an ex-gratia redress scheme for women who underwent symphysiotomy.

Members of the Survivors of Symphysiotomy group have rejected the Government’s redress plan.

The Survivors of Symphysiotomy are calling for a negotiated settlement of their legal actions for the "inhuman" procedure they underwent without consent.

Women whose pelvises were sawed in half to facilitate childbirth are to bring their fight for justice to the UN as they accuse the Government of refusing to admit they were wronged.

A UN human rights committee denounced the Vatican for “systematically” adopting policies that allowed priests to rape and molest tens of thousands of children over decades, and urged it to open its files on paedophiles and the bishops who concealed their crimes.

The Vatican “systematically” adopted policies that allowed priests to rape and molest tens of thousands of children over decades, a UN human rights committee said today.