THE FORMER secretary general of the Department of Justice, Seán Aylward, has been elected as Ireland’s representative on the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture. The body examines detention conditions in institutions in member countries.
Membership of the committee is not a full-time position, but is paid on a per diem basis. A member attending all 40 working days will earn €10,160 a year.
Mr Aylward was head of the prison service in Ireland prior to his appointment as secretary general of the Department of Justice, from which he retired last July. He was eligible for a full pension of half his salary of €214,187 and a lump sum of €321,280.
His election will cause some surprise as he was not recommended as its first choice by the Council of Europe Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee. This committee makes a recommendation to the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers’ Deputies, which has the final say and which normally endorses the committee’s recommendation.
The first choice of this committee, following that of its human rights subcommittee, was NUI Galway academic Donncha O’Connell, an expert in international human rights law and a member of the EU’s Network of Independent Experts on Fundamental Rights. Mr Aylward was placed second and Dr Mary Rogan, an expert in prison policy who teaches in DIT, was third.
This followed a process whereby Minister for Justice Alan Shatter sought expressions of interest and forwarded three names to the Committee for the Prevention of Torture without expressing any preference.
The decision of the human rights committee not to recommend the former justice secretary general came weeks before the European Parliament’s budgetary control committee voted to reject the nomination of Kevin Cardiff to the Court of Auditors. While the Council of Europe has no direct relationship to the EU, the nomination process is similar.
“I am surprised and disappointed by the decision,” said Co Clare Labour TD Michael McNamara, one of the Irish parliamentary representatives on the Council of Europe. He told The Irish Times he had argued before the human rights committee that one of the two non-governmental nominees should be recommended. He pointed out Mr Aylward, as secretary of the Department of Justice, has robustly defended Ireland’s record on detention before various international human rights bodies.
“There are too many senior civil servants retiring on considerable pensions being taken back into these institutions,” Mr McNamara said.
Mr Aylward could not be contacted last night.
Last May Mr Aylward appeared before the UN Committee Against Torture in Geneva where he addressed criticism made by several committee members about the Government’s response to the Ryan report into clerical child sex abuse and its failure to agree to calls for a statutory inquiry and redress for women committed to Magdalene laundries.
He said “the vast majority of women who went to these institutions went there voluntarily or, if they were minors, with the consent of their parents or guardians”.