PUBLIC SECTOR EQUALITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS DUTY
Dublin City Council is committed to its duty to promote equality, prevent discrimination and protect human rights in all its work.
The Public Sector Equality and Human Right Duty (‘the Duty’) is a statutory obligation on public bodies to have regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, promote equality of opportunity and protect the human rights of our Elected Members, employees, services users and policy beneficiaries, under Section 42 of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014.
The City Council is committed to driving the ongoing implementation of the Duty across all of our service areas and will continue to support and monitor the development and implementation of annual action plans for the Duty, based on our Annual Service Delivery Plans. We will gather and analyse data to report on our achievements in addressing equality and human rights issues as part of the City Council’s Annual Report.
Each Department is responsible for organising and for ensuring ongoing implementation of the Duty in its work.
Dublin City Council undertakes the steps required to give effect to the Duty: Assess, Address and Report.
ASSESS
Dublin City Council has undertaken an evidence-based and participative assessment of the human rights and equality issues, facing the identified groups for the Duty, it believes to be relevant to its functions and purpose for each Department, which is amalgamated in a single organisational assessment.
This assessment is based on a review of relevant national policy, national research, and submissions to international human rights monitoring bodies to capture issues of situation and experience for these groups and needs specific to these groups, and on engagement with relevant civil society organisations. It is not an assessment of Dublin City Council in the performance of its functions.
ADDRESS
Dublin City Council has developed an implementation plan as a framework for the ongoing implementation of the Duty over the period of this Corporate Plan, which includes implementation plans prepared by each Department. This implementation plan sets out: the values that motivate the City Council’s concern for equality and human rights and their concrete implications for City Council priorities and processes; the assessment of equality and human rights issues relevant to the functions and purpose of the City Council; actions to enable an ongoing implementation of the Duty; how the Address step of the Duty will be implemented in an ongoing manner in the development or review of plans, policies, strategies and programmes, and through targeted action plans; and how the Report step of the Duty will be implemented each year.
Eleven equality and human rights issues were drawn from the overall assessment, as being of an overarching nature and a priority for this Corporate Plan and are addressed in the commitments made in the relevant areas of this Corporate Plan (See Appendix 1). The ongoing implementation of the Address Step of the Duty, under the implementation plan, will secure an adequate and appropriate response to the equality and human rights issues identified in the assessment. This will be further reinforced, as required, through targeted plans and strategies, such as the Age Friendly Strategy, the Strategic Plan for Housing People with a Disability and the Traveller Accommodation Programme.
REPORT
As part of the Annual Service Delivery Plan reporting process, each department will report on progress made in addressing the equality and human rights issues identified. Dublin City Council will also report annually on developments and achievements in implementing the Duty within the Annual Report.
PRIORITY EQUALITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES
The eleven issues below were established as being of an overarching nature and a priority for this Corporate Plan. Dublin City Council’s template for the Address Step of the Duty was completed to ensure that these equality and human rights issues were being adequately and appropriately addressed in the commitments made in the relevant areas of this Corporate Plan.
- Discrimination across the identified groups that is both at the individual and the systemic level and includes harassment and sexual harassment.
- Staff training and awareness on issues of equality, discrimination, and stereotyping, and of diversity and inclusive processes.
- The need for universal design in infrastructure, facilities, employment and services.
- Unemployment and under- representation in employment, and barriers to and lack of promotion at work for people from the identified groups.
- Accessibility of employment and work environments, services and facilities, and communication systems, with a lack of processes to adapt or be flexible in response to the practical implications of diversity and the specific needs of people from the identified groups.
- Poverty, both concentrated in specific areas and dispersed within areas of affluence, experienced by people from the identified groups.
- Housing disadvantage and homelessness across the identified groups.
- Limited participation of people from the identified groups in physical activities as participants and organisers, and in cultural activities as producers and as consumers of arts and culture.
- Digital constraints and exclusion for people from the identified groups due to absence of infrastructure and connectivity, lack of necessary equipment, and lack of sufficient IT skills.
- The need for specific consultation or engagement with the voices of the identified groups, and consultation processes designed to be inclusive.
- Need for accessible information to enable informed choices by people from the identified groups.
