FLAC (Free Legal Advice Centres) has made a detailed submission to the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to inform the next National Strategy for Women and Girls.
The submission emphasises that equality/non-discrimination, access to justice and human rights should be pillars of the new strategy.
The strategy should respond to the clear demands that emerged during the 2024 ‘family’ and ‘care’ referendums for practical improvements in law and policies for groups including carers and people with disabilities. FLAC has also repeated its call for stronger equality and anti-discrimination provisions in the Constitution.
FLAC has published its submission to the ongoing consultation to inform a new National Strategy for Women and Girls. The submission makes detailed recommendations for strengthening Ireland’s access to justice and equality frameworks.
The State’s national equality and human rights body (IHREC) has criticised previous ‘equality strategies’ for “not adequately [improving] rights protections for communities in practice, due to insufficient monitoring and implementation”. In order to advance gender equality and to ensure that the new strategy is effective, FLAC recommends stronger enforceable positive duties on the State and public bodies to promote equality and human rights and to eliminate discrimination.
Eilis Barry, FLAC Chief Executive, commented:
“The time is right for an ambitious strategy for the promotion of gender equality in Ireland which commits to substantive improvements in the legal rights of women and girls. This must involve completing and implementing the review of Ireland’s equality and anti-discrimination legislation. Access to justice and significant practical improvements in access to all forms of public legal assistance (including legal information, advice and legal representation) should also be a priority.
A strong demand for clear rights-based reforms and enforceable social rights emerged from the ‘family’ and ‘care’ referendums. The new strategy can and should respond to that demand by giving practical effect to the human rights and equality of women, diverse families, people with disabilities, older people, children, the unpaid caregiver and the often low-paid care worker (many of whom are members of migrant communities). Such an approach would greatly improve the prospect of successful constitutional reform in the future.
FLAC has long recommended an amendment to the Constitution’s ineffective ‘equality guarantee’. Article 40.1 has been criticised by bodies such as the United Nations Committee Elimination of Discrimination against Women and the Citizens’ Assembly. An amended equality guarantee should include all of the grounds of discrimination in the equality legislation, including gender, strong provisions enabling positive action measures and clear obligations to provide reasonable accommodation for people with disabilities. This will assist in achieving full equality in practice for all groups who experience discrimination and disadvantage. The strategy should lay the groundwork for that long overdue reform.”
The submission makes recommendations across a number of key areas of concern for FLAC:
Equality/Anti-Discrimination
The new Strategy should commit to the completion and implementation of the review of the equality legislation. This must involve:
Human Rights
The new Strategy should commit to implementing the law reform and policy recommendations made by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women. Ireland will soon be subject to a periodic review by that Committee. This should include addressing the Committee’s concerns around the “restrictive financial eligibility criteria” for access to legal aid.
Access to Justice
The new Strategy should commit to expanding the provision of public legal assistance for women, including legal representation in areas such as employment, discrimination, social welfare and social housing law (which are not covered by the existing scheme of civil legal aid).
The Legal Aid Board should also be mandated to provide early and preventative forms of legal assistance (such as advocacy, legal information, public legal education and advice services) in these areas, as well as legal assistance for parties to mediation in family law cases.
The Strategy should commit to the introduction of a publicly-available ‘Equal Treatment Bench Book’ - an anti-discrimination guide for judges which is also of assistance to legal practitioners and court users. That Bench Book should cover areas such as safe participation in family law proceedings and criminal law proceedings concerning sexual offences, adjustments for those who are pregnant or in menopause to support their participation in court proceedings, and the treatment of transgender people in court.
FLAC’s full submission to the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth to inform the next National Strategy for Women and Girls may be accessed here.
ABOUT FLAC
FLAC (Free Legal Advice Centres) is an independent human rights and equality organisation, which exists to promote access to justice. As an Independent Law Centre, FLAC takes on a number of cases in the public interest each year and operates a Traveller Legal Service, Roma Legal Clinic and LGBTQI
Legal Service. FLAC also operates a legal information and referral telephone line and a nationwide network of legal advice clinics where volunteer lawyers provide basic free legal advice.