O’Reilly voices ire at record on rights
Ms O’Reilly, who leaves her post next month after 10 years as the watchdog over public bodies to become European ombudsman, said she could not even raise the subject of human rights with ministers and officials.
Comparing the subject with the effort it took to get children to eat vegetables, she said she had to cut it up into small pieces, cover it with sugar or ketchup, and present it to them without making it obvious what was on the plate. “Just don’t tell them what we are doing is human rights,” she said.
“But of course it is. When you manage to solve a complaint in relation to somebody’s housing, somebody’s benefits, a child with disability or in relation to any of the social issues, what you are doing is making sure that these people’s human rights are upheld.”
Ms O’Reilly accused ministers and state agencies of using the cover of her own office to deprive vulnerable people of supports, citing her finding of discrimination in the allocation of the mobility allowance and motorised transport grants for people with disabilities.
She said she assumed the schemes would be extended and made more inclusive as a result, but instead they were scrapped completely.
Similarly, her finding of discrimination in the way long-term illness cards were issued to some children with ADHD and autism seemed to have resulted in all such children being denied them.
“This has emerged as a major issue for my office. I worry about this — I won’t say wholesale abandonment — but certainly very sudden cutting and curbing of schemes, and perhaps the using of my office as the fig leaf to hide behind.”
She also said the Government hid behind the troika in cutting essential services, blaming the bailout bodies for forcing funding decisions when in fact they were failing to make the right political choices
Ms O’Reilly also spoke of “significant disagreement” between herself and the Department of Justice over the planned new Human Rights and Equality Commission, meant to replace the equality Authority and Irish Human Rights Commission, both of which have suffered severe cutbacks.
The selection panel, which she chaired, asked for changes to the eligibility criteria to enable them widen the search for a chief commissioner and the department took the task away from them.
Her concerns about the time it was taking to replace the agency were reflected in figures that show the number of cases taken by state equality and human rights bodies fell by up to 66% since the recession began.
An Equality and Rights Alliance study found that between 2008 and 2011, the number of cases dealt with by the Equality Tribunal fell by 33%, cases supported by the Equality Authority fell by 66% and the Irish Human Rights Commission granted legal assistance in just three cases in 2011.
ERA co-ordinator Rachel Mullen said: “Discrimination diminishes the lives of thousands, yet we find ourselves in an equality and human rights limbo.”
