Blog Carnival Conclusion: The Human Rights Implications of Budget 2010
This Wordle is drawn from the text in all the contributors posts.
As with all blog carnivals, my first task to is to thank those who contributed today: Elaine, Aoife, Danielle, Fergal, Eilonoir, Deirdre, Mairead and Vicky.
Please find all the blog contributions below:
Human Rights and Equality Infrastructure
The Rights of People with Disabilities
The only task left to me is to close this blog carnival. Today, we have discussed the rights affected in a very academic sense. What we have done is show you the reality of this budget for a segment of the population living in the Republic of Ireland. This budget will have a minimal impact on some, a more appreciable impact on most, and a noticable impact on the less well off.
Rather than draw conclusions from the posts above, I will allow you to draw your own conclusions. Did we neglect to discuss the dire economic situation which Ireland is facing? Did we properly discuss the fact that billions of Euro are being spent on bank and business subsidies? Did we properly question the whole economic system upon which Budget 2010 is based? Is the economic system which much of the world has in place conducive to human rights protection? These are issues not only for the Republic of Ireland to face, but for the globe at large.
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Human Rights in Ireland 
Well done Liam! Interesting analyses all round.
This from the FOMACS blog:
Budget 2010: reaction I
11/12/2009
Media coverage of the impact of the budget on asylum, immigration and integration has been slight, so I will publish some of the reactions here. Firstly, that of the relevant minister, the Minister for Integration, John Curran.
The Office of the Minister for Integration had been threatened in the report of An Bord Snip Nua, headed by economist Colm McCarthy (for more, see here), but has been retained. This was welcomed by the Minister for Integration, John Curran, who said this was a ‘recognition of the contribution being made to Irish society by migrants and of the need to continue to promote integration’.
Curran noted that he had assumed responsibility for Integration matters in addition to his other responsibilities, resulting in ‘the saving of the normal costs associated with the appointment of a Minister of State, as staff previously employed in the separate Office of the Minister had been allocated to other offices’.
His office received €5.465 million in the budget, compared to a revised estimate of €5.165 million for 2009. The closing of the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism had resulted in a saving of about €500,000 euro a year, he said, saying that the functions of the NCCRI had been subsumed into his office.
Some of the key expenditure of that office this year has been:
Local authorities: €950,000
Resettlement: €500,000
National sporting bodies: €470,000
Employment for People from Immigrant Communities project: €390,000
Immigrant Integration Fund administered by Pobal: €280,000
Budget 2010: reaction II
11/12/2009
Buried in the small print of the budget was a significant amendment to the Social Welfare Act to exclude all asylum seekers from qualifying for social welfare benefits.
The Free Legal Advice Centres (FLAC) was quick off the mark in spotting this, and denouncing it as ‘mean-minded, petty and divisive’.
According to their statement: ‘The Government proposal would mean that no-one who had not been given a right to reside in the State could qualify for payments like Child Benefit, State Pensions and Carers Benefit. This would exclude people who had already spent years awaiting an asylum decision.
‘There are already provisions under the Habitual Residence Condition to prevent so-called ‘welfare tourism’ and stop people getting benefits unless they have been here for some time and have established links here. (Download FLAC’s paper on the habitual residence condition here.)
FLAC Senior Solicitor Michael Farrell said the measure would penalise children, persons of pension age and people caring for sick children.
‘It will cause divisions in schools where asylum-seekers’ children who may have been here for a number of years will not be able to take part in school trips and will be marked out as different. It will set back efforts at integration.’
FLAC said the Government proposal followed a series of successful appeals taken by FLAC on behalf of asylum-seekers who had all spent years awaiting decisions on their asylum applications. In a total of nine such cases, the Chief Social Welfare Appeals Officer had rejected claims by the Department of Social and Family Affairs that no one in the asylum process could qualify for benefits.
Michael Farrell said the decision showed a cavalier attitude to the system the Government had established to hear social welfare appeals.
‘When those tribunals showed genuine independence and made decisions the Government did not like, the Minister’s reaction was to change the law, not to listen to the valid points the Appeals Office was making.’
Watch out for more on this on the blog, Human Rights in Ireland.
FLAC has recently launched an online audio archive, featuring interviews with key people in its 40 year history, and describing the fight for access to justice in Ireland.