Irish Examiner view: Standing in the shadows

In this picture provided by Swedish Coast Guard, the gas leak in the Baltic Sea from Nord Stream photographed from the Coast Guard's aircraft on Wednesday. A fourth leak on the Nord Stream pipelines has been reported off southern Sweden. Earlier, three leaks had been reported on the two underwater pipelines running from Russia to Germany. Picture: Swedish Coast Guard via AP

During an excessively busy news week — an important budget here; gas pipelines apparently being sabotaged; mobilisation in Russia; high jinks in the financial markets; a terrible hurricane in Florida — it was easy to miss an important report on how Ireland is combatting human trafficking.

And the verdict, from our European neighbours, is the equivalent of a report card C minus. 

The Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (Greta) echoed criticisms originally made by the US State Department this summer that Ireland is not meeting even minimum standards. 

While trafficking for sex, forced labour, and crime increases hugely throughout the world, the number of victims identified by gardaí has fallen steadily to just 44 last year. 

Investigations have decreased and the number of prosecutions is “very low”. 

Ireland says that improvements are on the way including a “victim-centred” approach and a new national action plan will be tabled by the end of the year. 

That won’t disguise the fact that our performance has been shoddy. If we want to be on the moral high ground, lecturing the rest of the world on human rights, as we often do then, like Caesar’s wife, we must be above suspicion.