The Government has expressed its embarrassment for failing to ratify two important human rights conventions.
At a weekend conference in Dublin, the Minister of State for Tourism, Sport and Recreation, Mr Chris Flood, said it was an "embarrassing situation" that the Government had not ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture or the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.
He was speaking at the second annual NGO (non-governmental organisation) Forum on Human Rights at Dublin Castle.
The chief commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, Prof Brice Dickson, said it was "regrettable" that the Government had yet to establish a human rights commission, as required under the Belfast Agreement.
Mr Michael Farrell, co-chair of the Irish Council of Civil Liberties, said it was deeply disappointing that the Government had not even put a human rights commission Bill before the Oireachtas. He added that a wide-ranging review of the Republic's emergency legislation, including the Offences Against the State Act, had been promised, but had not been delivered.
Mr Flood, speaking in place of the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ms Liz O'Donnell, who was occupied with the Northern talks, said every effort had to be made to pass the legislation needed to ratify the UN Convention Against Torture before the end of the current Dail session.
Efforts to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination needed to be stepped up, too. "If we are to feel able to speak out on the human rights situations in other countries, we must make sure that our own house is in order," he said.
Prof Dickson said he could not understand why there had been such a delay in setting up the commission in the Republic.
It was regrettable the commission had not been established because a joint committee between the commissions in both parts of the island could not start its work.
When the Republic's commission was finally established, it should adopt the UN's Paris Principles which gave human rights commissions powers to impel people to give evidence at inquiry hearings.
Mr Farrell said the heads of the Bill circulated for the human rights commission contained deep flaws. One problem was that members of the commission would have to be senior judges or barristers, confining membership "to a small wealthy elite".
Under the proposed terms, disabled people or refugees would not be able to become members of the commission unless they were sen ior legal figures. "The way it is currently framed means even Prof Brice Dickson would not be allowed to apply."