Review of equality agencies by end of year, says Minister

RECOMMENDATIONS FOR a review of the three equality and human rights agencies will be brought to the Government before Christmas, Green Party Minister of State for Equality Mary White has said.

Describing herself as “a new Minister in a hurry”, Ms White said she was determined to protect the independence and work of the Equality Authority, the Equality Tribunal and the Human Rights Commission. She would make sure the review was not a cost-cutting measure.

“In tough times, we need to do some creative lateral thinking to ensure that even when budgets are strained the equality framework cannot and must not be compromised,” she said.

Ms White told an Equality Authority conference in Dublin yesterday she had recently drafted tenders to allow for “scoping papers” from outside experts to review best practice of similar bodies in other countries.

She said responsibility for the equality and human rights agencies, integration policy and some aspects of social inclusion would transfer shortly from the Department of Justice to the Department of Community, Equality and Gaeltacht Affairs.

European Union equality law was limited in scope and should not set a limit to Ireland’s ambitions, she said, because education, social welfare and health issues fell largely outside its domain.

Ireland had a body of case law under its equal status legislation that could offer valuable lessons to other member states beginning a legislative framework on equality.

The State’s equal status legislation had been explicitly designed to protect a broad spectrum of individuals.

“The inclusion of marital status, family status, age, disability, sexual orientation and religion . . . ensured that Ireland’s equality legislation went well beyond the EU norm,” Ms White said.

However, she said the society in which Ireland’s equal status legislation had been produced was a dramatically different society from today’s. Ireland’s migrant population had doubled to almost 12 per cent.

“In this regard Ireland has now surpassed the United States, the United Kingdom and France, three countries with a much longer immigration history.”

Attitudes to homosexual and bisexual people had changed for the better, she said, and the passage of civil partnership legislation through the Oireachtas was another step in the right direction.

Ms White also said she wanted to signal her commitment to enhancing gender equality and would work to remove the gender pay gap.

There must be no room for discrimination in this country, she said.

“I’ve no doubt the broken society and the broken economy is because of growth in inequality,” Ms White added.