The European Social Charter sets out a number of rights and freedoms relating to housing, health, education, employment, legal and social protection, movement of persons and non-discrimination. The original 1961 Charter was revised in 1996 and this revised European Social Charter came into force in Ireland in 1999. The Charter is a sister human rights treaty to the European Convention on Human Rights. The Charter was enacted to fill a gap left by the Convention which essentially covers only civil and political rights.
The European Committee of Social Rights (ECSR) is the body responsible for monitoring compliance by the States that are party to the Charter. State Parties to the Charter must submit annual reports to the Committee. In January 2014, the Committee published its conclusions on Ireland’s compliance with the Charter from 2008 to 2011. This means a number of issues that arose since 2011 are not covered – for example the ability of young people to access full rate unemployment benefit/assistance; maternity benefit cuts; and the cumulative impact of successive regressive budgets.
Click here to read the Committee’s full report.
Click here to read an article by UCD’s Dr Liam Thornton on humanrights.ie summarising the Committee’s conclusions.
The ESCR found that Ireland complied with a number of its obligations including; the maintenance of a social security system in line with the European Code of Social Security; the level of social assistance for welfare payments for job-seekers, people with disabilities, widows/ers, one parent families is adequate, conforming, in part to obligations on right to medical and social assistance. The Committee also found that Ireland was meeting its obligations relating to the right to be protected against poverty and social exclusion. However the Committee said that Ireland had failed to provide information about how it was actually meeting its specified obligations.
However, the Committee also found that Ireland had not complied with many of its other Charter obligations. The Committee said that there were inadequate minimum levels of sickness, unemployment, survivor’s, employment injury and invalidity benefits. The Committee also raised concerns about the operation of Ireland’s social security system, and the accumulation of insurance and employment periods for certain nationals from European Social Charter party countries. Healthcare access rights for legal migrants and the operation of the habitual residence condition was found to breach aspects of Ireland’s social and medical assistance obligations. Lastly, Ireland was found to be violating aspects of the Charter’s Article 14 (right to benefit from social welfare services) by not establishing that the quality of services provided by non-state bodies meets users needs.