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IHREC grant funds enable study of public-sector duty

The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) has named the recipients for its third round of grant awards.

Emily Logan (pictured above) is IHREC’s chief commissioner.

The monies support research on human rights, including migrant and gender equality, and training in respect of diversity and cultural difference.

There were over 100 applications for this year’s awards.

The equality grants are awarded under IHREC’s statutory power to promote human rights and equality under the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014

Traveller ethnicity

In the field of community law and mediation, one project will undertake a legal review of the Caravan Loan Scheme. This follows Ireland’s recent recognition of Traveller ethnicity.

The Dublin City University Anti-Bullying Centre is to be funded, together with the Humanist Association of Ireland, to develop guidelines for religious education teachers who work with minority faith and other students in Irish post-primary schools.

The project will “build research evidence and raise awareness and understanding of challenges and opportunities impacting on the provision of equality and respect for the human right to freedom of minority beliefs,” IHREC says.

Right to education

The Maynooth University Department of Law is being funded for a research project to investigate whether Ireland is compliant with the right to education, as set forth in the United Nations’ International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

Dublin-based Community Action Network (CAN) has been funded to promote awareness and understanding among service users of their human and equality rights, and of public sector duty.

The project will support “this vulnerable group of rights holders to know how to use the complaints system and to address the issues they have named to be of concern to them,” IHREC says.

Rights-based abortion provision

Meanwhile, the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) has been funded for a project to put the public sector equality and human rights duty into practice “through advancing a rights-based and patient-centred approach to the provision of abortion care in Ireland”.

The Irish Penal Reform Trust is being funded for a project to raise awareness of “intersectional discrimination and human rights breaches against people with disabilities in detention”.

UCC, in association with Cork Deaf Association and Kerry Deaf Resource Centre, will get funding to probe deficiencies in deaf cultural awareness and expose “audist systems and practices”. This work aims to support the effective and meaningful implementation of the Irish Sign Language Act 2017.

Section 42 of the Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014 places a positive duty on public-sector bodies to have regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, promote equality, and protect human rights in their daily work.