The newly revised National Anti-Poverty Strategy, due to be published in the autumn, should take into account people's economic and social rights, a conference organised by the Combat Poverty Agency has been told.
The agency's director, Mr Hugh Frazer, said that a revised strategy which recognised basic rights to housing, education, health and jobs would be more focused and ambitious. "It's saying these are rights, not something that it would be nice to have people achieving, but something that people should achieve as of right, and our society should work towards that."
Mr Frazer told the conference - Narrowing the Gap Between Rich and Poor - that poverty and social exclusion were a fundamental denial of human dignity. "Economic and social rights, which include the right to health, the right to an adequate standard of living, the right to housing, the right to work and the right to a sustainable environment, are essential to uphold human dignity."
A call for a human rights approach in the National AntiPoverty Strategy was also made by a member of a United Nations committee, who said it was "regrettable" that Ireland had not yet adopted such a framework. Prof Paul Hunt, of the UN Committee of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, said it had recommended in 1999 that Ireland integrate a human rights approach into its anti-poverty strategy.
This followed a report by Ireland to the Geneva-based committee, which monitors the implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights by states which have ratified it. Ireland is one of 145 states to have ratified the covenant, which imposes legally binding obligations on all states.
Prof Hunt, a law lecturer, told delegates that he was speaking in a personal capacity, not as a member of the committee. He said that the committee, in its observations on Ireland's pro gress in 1999, regretted that the covenant had not been fully incorporated or reflected in domestic legislation and was rarely invoked before the courts.
The 18-member committee also regretted that Ireland's National Anti-Poverty Strategy "did not adopt a human rights framework consistent with the provisions of the covenant".
The committee recommended that Ireland "incorporates justiciable economic, social and cultural rights into domestic law and that it integrates a human rights approach to the National Anti-Poverty Strategy".
He said the committee believed that anti-poverty strategies were more likely to be effective, sustainable, inclusive, equitable and meaningful to those living in poverty if they were based on international human rights.
Ireland was gaining a great deal of experience about antipoverty strategies, he said. "Of course, it does not have all the answers. Nonetheless, it is giving these issues more serious institutional attention than the great majority of other states. I hope the Irish Government, and others familiar with the insights gained, will share their experience in the UN and elsewhere. It seems to me that this is an area in which Ireland can play a leading international role."
The Government's 10-year National Anti-Poverty Strategy, launched in 1997, sets policy aims to tackle poverty and social exclusion. Officials are currently consulting the voluntary and community sector on a newly revised strategy to be published next November.
The Government is due to submit next month to the European Commission a National Action Plan Against Poverty and Social Exclusion. All EU member-states will submit similar plans, which will be used to set EU objectives.
Mr Frazer will leave the Combat Poverty Agency next month to take up a post with the European Commission for three years. He will assist the Commission in developing and monitoring EU initiatives to tackle poverty and social exclusion.