A United Nations expert has welcomed the Government's decision to sign a convention allowing for increased monitoring of prisons and other places of detention to ensure detainees are not mistreated.
The Government is expected to sign the optional protocol to the United Nations Convention Against Torture (OPCAT) within the next month. The purpose of the convention is to prevent torture and ill-treatment by establishing a system of regular visits to places of detention by independent, international and national bodies.
Speaking at a seminar organised by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) in Dublin yesterday, Dr Silvia Casale, chairwoman of the UN Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture, said full implementation could improve the experience of people held in prisons, youth detention units, psychiatric hospitals and immigration detention centres.
"By knitting together international and national oversight, the United Nations and national human rights monitors can make a genuine difference to the lives of vulnerable people held in closed institutions," she said.
Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2002, OPCAT has been signed by 65 countries so far, of which 34 have ratified the convention.
Once Ireland signs the protocol, legislation will have to be introduced to enable monitoring agencies to carry out their work, including making unannounced visits to places of detention. The convention requires that countries designate existing domestic agencies or establish new bodies to conduct inspections.
Representatives of the Irish Human Rights Commission, the Inspectorate of Prisons and Places of Detention, and the Inspectorate of Mental Hospitals attended the seminar.
Several speakers, including Suzanne Egan of the Irish Human Rights Commission and Matthew Pringle from the Geneva-based Association for the Prevention of Torture, stressed the need for civil society groups and non-governmental organisations to be involved in implementation mechanisms. Such groups should be "active players in the process", said ICCL director, Mark Kelly.
Mr Kelly said that implementing the convention may require an overhaul of some existing agencies' powers and resources.
"These new UN standards require that national human rights oversight bodies be genuinely independent, properly resourced and have unrestricted access to places of detention," he said.