The Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC) is taking part today in a unique Human Rights Hearing organised by the Rialto Rights in Action Project. The event will hear evidence from residents in Dolphins House local authority flats complex about the impact of poor housing conditions on their health and well being.
Ireland has committed to uphold the right to adequate housing and to maximise available resources to progressively achieve that right over time. It has also committed to guarantee that right can be enjoyed without discrimination of any kind. The obligation to provide adequate housing means that people have available to them services such as energy to cook, sanitation, site drainage and refuse disposal. Adequate housing must be habitable: it should have adequate space and protect its inhabitants from cold, damp, heat, rain, wind or other threats to health. Housing must be accessible in particular to disadvantaged groups and housing law and policy should take full account of the housing needs of these groups. Adequate housing must be in a location which allows access to employment options, health-care, childcare, schools and other social facilities.
Speaking, as part of a panel of human rights experts, Dr Maurice Manning, President of the Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC) said "this is an extremely important and innovative forum to highlight ongoing problems with housing conditions in Dolphins House. The residents of Dolphins House, through their own research, have collected stark evidence of damp, mould and poor sewerage disposal and the effects they are having on the health and well being of people living there. The standards underpinning the right to adequate housing allow this research to be measured against international criteria to identify whether the right in question is being sufficiently protected."
Dr Manning continued, "The problems faced by residents in Dolphins House are not recent, they are on going over a long period of time. The human rights indicators developed by residents are an innovative way of measuring housing conditions, and of making human rights standards real and tangible. The process has empowered local residents to hold the Government to account by providing concrete evidence of the extent to which minimum human rights standards are being met or otherwise. The evidence speaks for itself. Residents have clear housing issues and action by Government may be required to remedy the situation."
ENDS/
For further information, please contact:
Fidelma Joyce
IHRC
Mob: 087 783 4939