Submission to the United Nations Human Rights Committee for the List of Issues Prior to Reporting in respect of Ireland

The Irish Centre for Human Rights (ICHR) at the School of Law, National University of Ireland, Galway is Ireland’s principal academic human rights institute. The ICHR undertakes human rights teaching, research, publications and training, and contributes to human rights policy development nationally and internationally. The ICHR has prepared this submission for the purpose of informing the United Nations Human Rights Committee’s (the Committee) List of Issues Prior to Reporting (LOIPR) for Ireland’s fifth periodic review. This submission provides selected research and analysis from the ICHR’s staff and researcher community. It is not a comprehensive account of all relevant issues in Ireland arising under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and should be read alongside the reports of other civil society organisations. It is supplemented by our recent report to the Committee against Torture (CAT) in advance of its next LOIPR for Ireland, 1 and a report submitted by our Human Rights Law Clinic students to the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) for its upcoming LOIPR for Ireland.2 This Report focuses on the following areas of concern: 1. Non-Ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture 2. Direct Provision 3. Human Rights Protections in Residential Care Contexts 4. ‘Historical’ Institutional and Adoption-related Abuses 5. Traveller Housing and Institutional Racism 6. Undocumented Migrants’ Access to Basic Services to Enjoy the Right to Life in Dignity 7. Denial of Leave to Enter the State 8. Human Trafficking 9. Hate Crime Legislation 10. Domestic, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence 11. Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities 12. Business and Human Rights Recommended questions are highlighted in bold at the end of each section