The departure of the head of the State’s human rights watchdog to run for Europe sparked internal fears about the risk of a perception of “politicisation” or conflict of interest, records from the organisation show.
Sinéad Gibney unexpectedly stepped down as chief commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) earlier this year to seek the Social Democrats’ nomination to run in next month’s European elections. She is standing in the Dublin constituency.
Internal minutes show that an extraordinary meeting of the commission held after Ms Gibney’s announcement was told members of the IHREC executive had expressed “concerns ... regarding the perceived risk to IHREC’s independence”. Members also raised concerns about “the risk of perception of politicisation or political alignment of the role and the difficulty for the executive of navigating any perceived conflict that might arise during the transition period”.
The commission, the notes show, “agreed that a perception of conflict of interest existed”. IHREC director Deirdre Malone told the meeting “no protocol can govern for the perceived conflict in the current context”. In response to queries, IHREC said this referred to the “difficulty arising in completely eliminating this perception through a governance protocol”.
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In response to queries, Ms Gibney and the IHREC said steps were taken in response to the risk and she stepped back from legal and spokesperson duties, decisions on legal work, chairing meetings as well as other measures.
Ms Gibney said: “I don’t believe I politicised the role and I worked effectively with my colleagues to mitigate any such risk or perception of risk,” adding that she took “very seriously” the apolitical nature of her role as chief commissioner.
A mechanism was also put in place for the commission to consider potential conflicts of interest as they arose. No potential conflicts of interest were logged during the period while Ms Gibney remained with the organisation.
“We held a number of meetings to ensure everyone was content with the handling of these steps. I’m happy that we had strong governance in place to handle this and that we responded effectively as an organisation,” Ms Gibney said
Nonetheless, the IHREC also took the step of formally adding a section to its risk register reflecting the “risks of perceived damage to our reputation as an impartial independent body” as a result of the announcement.
It later emerged Ms Gibney had been in informal discussions with the Social Democrats since September.
In the days preceding the January 19th meeting, a memo drafted by Ms Gibney and the IHREC executive director outlined that it was open to the commission to ask her to step down if it perceived that her potential candidacy “is too much of a threat to the apolitical nature of the organisation”.
This memo reveals that Ms Gibney had indicated “that she will resist any such suggestion”. Ms Gibney told The Irish Times that ultimately this would not have applied but she would have resisted pressure to step aside immediately as she was “appointed by the President to do a job”. She said she wanted to ensure that “I took the right steps to wrap up work, facilitate handover and finish my role in a responsible and professional manner”.
The records, which were released under Freedom of Information laws, also show that a second extraordinary meeting on January 26th discussed concerns about potential perceptions of a conflict of interest in respect of attendance at non-public events, noting that she had attended a leadership forum of the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions days earlier.
In response to queries, IHREC said a majority of commissioners had “expressed the view that [Ms Gibney] should not attend” the event. Asked why she did so anyway, Ms Gibney said she felt it was important to manage the relationships she had built during her time as chief commissioner and to position the organisation’s director as the new point of contact. “I’m happy that the trip was successful in achieving that,” she said.
The records also show the IHREC was considering asking for a pay increase for its director at the time, which the organisation said would have had an impact on the grade of the chief commissioner, as it must be at a more senior grade than the director.
An unsuccessful application was ultimately made. Ms Gibney said the issue of salary had no bearing on her decision to leave the IHREC and that she had taken on a “significant personal financial exposure to run for election”.
She added that she felt the chief commissioner role should be in future paid the same as a deputy secretary general rather than currently at assistant secretary, citing a “real lack of consistency” as other roles in the Policing Authority, the Electoral Commission and Coimisiún na Meán offered a precedent.
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