26 July 2020
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has today published a report on our work and finances in 2019. ICCL specifically focused on grassroots activism during 2019, conducting a National Consultation with protesters, as well as supporting the arts through a campaign against censorship. Much of the work undertaken in 2019 has had results through 2020.
ICCL director Liam Herrick said:
“This work has enabled us to mobilise through the pandemic. Because of connections built in 2019, we were able to support our colleagues in grassroots movements when protest was restricted. We also worked together with service providers to ensure that at-risk groups such as homeless people, those in prisons, and asylum seekers were afforded special protections during the pandemic.”
Our campaign for safe zones at abortion providers received widespread support. We followed up with the former Minister for Health, Simon Harris, regarding his 2018 commitment to safe zones on a number of occasions. In 2020 we provided a policy document outlining why and how safe zones should be implemented to the Minister.
Our long-standing campaign to end the Public Services Card bore fruit when the Data Protection Commissioner declared it partially illegal. We continue that work today – most recently drawing attention to the fact that the Department of Social Welfare continues to spend money on the card when it is subject to a judicial process.
We also saw strong results in our 2019 campaign to secure Justice for Dara. Indeed, a commitment to outlawing image-based sexual abuse is now included in the new Programme for Government.
ENDS/
We can’t do this work without support. Please consider joining ICCL today.
Notes for editors:
Find ICCL’s 2019 Annual Report here: https://www.iccl.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/ICCL-Annual-Report-2019.pdf
The Irish Council for Civil Liberties is Ireland’s oldest independent human rights monitoring organisation. We monitor, educate and campaign for all human rights for everyone.
For comment: Liam Herrick
For media enquiries Sinéad Nolan:sinead.nolan@iccl.ie