Ireland: The Irish Government is failing to protect the human rights of people with disabilities, asylum seekers, prisoners and domestic violence victims, according to Amnesty International's 2005 report.
The report found that allegations of ill-treatment and serious misconduct by gardaí persisted and that these allegations were not investigated impartially.
It expressed concern about the "seriously unsatisfactory conditions" for psychiatric patients. "The severe shortage in psychiatric services for young people resulted in children being detained in adult psychiatric hospitals."
Amnesty criticised the use of prisons to hold people facing deportation and said mentally ill prisoners continued to be held in padded cells in prisons rather than in specialised institutions.
The report raised the plight of Irish-born children whose asylum-seeker parents were being deported. It highlighted the rise in racially motivated incidents and said concerns persisted about the inadequacy of the system for reporting and prosecuting racist crimes.
Jim Loughran, campaigns manager at Amnesty's Irish section, said there was no room for complacency about Ireland's human rights situation.
He highlighted the lack of funding for rape crisis centres and said women who needed counselling "have been denied access simply because the shelters have had to shut their doors".
He said Ireland had been identified "as both a transit and a destination country for the trafficking of women and children for sexual exploitation".
He criticised recent comments by Minister for Justice Michael McDowell about the large number of bogus asylum claims. He said a minister with responsibility for human rights had a responsibility not to use inflammatory or discriminatory language.
