People denied their basic rights

IT has been reported that the Government is going to seek election to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Surely, if election to this council is to be sought, then surely the Government should first establish that Ireland has ensured that all the people of Ireland have been provided with the human rights specified in The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Is this the case? It doesn’t look like it. In this regard, article 25 of the Declaration says, among other things, that everyone has the right to “a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing housing and medical care”. This is the responsibility of governments, not of charities.

Yet, in Ireland some people have to go to charitable organisations for clothes and for food. Furthermore, some people have to decide between eating and keeping the house warm. Clearly such people have been deprived of their UN established human rights because the Government has failed to provide them. However, under article 2, the most extensive failure to provide vital human rights is probably in housing, or the lack of social housing. An August 2011 article in the Irish Examiner revealed that there are now 100,000 people on the social housing waiting list. The article reported that the then-Minister of State for Housing, Willie Penrose, said that his department is trying to co-ordinate ways of providing housing but “because of the troika we are not in a position to go the traditional route of building and acquisition”. Here we are with the troika preventing a sovereign government from providing vital human rights to their people when they are required to do so under the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Surely this international declaration trumps the troika.

Surely if the Government wants to have Ireland elected to the UN Human Rights council, it should first tell the troika that it intends to immediately implement the housing and other essential requirements in section 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. They should also tell the troika they will levy the wealth of the ultra-rich, raise income tax for the those on €100,000 a year and cut pensions of €150,000 a year and over by two-thirds, and making those who gambled on Ireland’s property bubble and banks that financed it cover their own losses, not make the Irish people cover them. Getting on the Human Rights Council can surely wait. Making sure people have a suitable house to live in and a job to do cannot.

Brian Abbott

Bishopstown Road

Cork