The State's failure to uphold children's rights, its treatment of people with intellectual disabilities, continued discrimination against Travellers and the death of Dublin man Terence Wheelock in 2005 after being found unconscious in a Garda cell are among concerns raised by Amnesty International in a new report.
Under the Irish section of its latest Report 2007, the State of the World's Human RightsAmnesty raises concern about Ireland's "passive collusion in the US-led programme of secret detentions and renditions".
"There was concern that the Government had not satisfactorily investigated allegations that Shannon airport may have been used by foreign aircraft in the transfer of detainees by the USA or its agents," says the report.
On children's rights it refers to the failure of the authorities to fully incorporate children's rights into all domestic policies and practices, as had been recommended by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
"Among other things the committee expressed concern about . . . [were] limitations in the mandate of the Ombudsman for Children in investigations related to children in prisons and police stations; racism and xenophobia faced by children from ethnic minority communities; the lack of privacy protection for children prosecuted in higher courts; . . . and child poverty."
Director of programmes with Amnesty's Ireland section Noeleen Hartigan said it was a "disgrace" that Ireland remained the only state in Europe not to have specific legislation outlawing trafficking in human beings. She said children suffering from mental disabilities were still placed in adult in-patient mental health units "in direct contravention of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child".
Progress on violence against women was "poor".
"National NGOs, including Amnesty, publicly rejected the proposed new Irish office for the prevention of domestic violence," she said. "Among our criticisms were the failure of the proposed strategy to tackle issues such as trafficking, and that its remit was limited to prevention and awareness without addressing the criminalisation of violence against women."
On discrimination, the report refers to the continued refusal of the Government to recognise Travellers as an ethnic minority, and cites admonishment from the UN's Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination that the Government should take steps on the issue.
It says a national women's strategy to address gender inequality had "still not been published", by the end of last year, while "organisations providing crisis and support services to women experiencing gender-based violence continued to be underfunded".
It refers to both the report on the killing of John Carthy by gardaí in 2000 and the third, fourth and fifth reports from the Morris tribunal inquiry into Garda behaviour in Donegal.
The report refers to the deaths of Mr Wheelock and of Gary Douch, who was killed by another prisoner in Mountjoy Prison, as cases of concern. On Mr Douch's death, Amnesty is concerned about the "absence of a statutory mechanism for independent investigations into prison-related complaints, including deaths in custody".
