The Human Rights Committee’s sent a follow-up letter to Ireland on 4 Jan 2010.

It is now on the  Human Rights Committee website HERE.

You will see from the letter that the Committee is largely satisfied with the Government’s information on measures adopted to improve detention conditions and steps taken with a view to providing non-denominational primary education. However, the Committee has sought additional information from the Government:

[...] on how and how often terrorist acts have been investigated and prosecuted, including information on the length of pre-trial detention and access to a lawyer in practice, on the safeguards in place when relying on official assurances, as well as on the mandate of, and the work carried out by, the Cabinet Committee on Aspects of International Human Rights in relation to monitoring traffic through Irish airports.

No deadline has been specified for the forwarding of this information.

Speaking at a major international conference in Dublin today, UN Human Rights Committee member Professor Michael O’Flaherty has decried what he described as the “scandal” of the government having made deep cuts to the budgets of bodies including the Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC) and the Equality Authority, only weeks after the UN’s top human rights body had recommended that the resources available to the IHRC be increased and its independence strengthened.

Professor O’Flaherty added that, in his view, it “beggars belief that the Government has failed to designate human rights protection and promotion as a charitable purpose in the Charities Act (2009)”

Professor O’Flaherty was speaking at Implementing Human Rights in a Time of Change: Facing Up to Challenges under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a conference jointly organised by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL), the Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) and FLAC (Free Legal Advice Centres).