IRELAND’S HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD: Ireland is eking out a new layer of human rights

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.

Every successive European and global monitoring process has added further grains of truth, until the contours of our State’s respect for human rights have become clear.

Viewed from any angle, the shadows are deep and dark: The barbaric surgical practice of symphysiotomy; the treatment of survivors of the Magdalene laundries; the absence of safe and lawful abortion. Key parts are missing completely: There’s still no independent monitoring of conditions in garda stations or of the treatment of people with disabilities; economic, social, and cultural rights remain absent from our Constitution.