The Human Rights Commission has 15 members, appointed by the Government for a period of 5 years. The first Commission served from July 2001 to June 2006. A new Commission was appointed on 31st August 2006 and their term commenced on 2nd October 2006. The current President, Dr. Maurice Manning, assumed office on 1 August, 2002.
In accordance with the Human Rights Commission Acts 2000 and 2001, not less than 7 of the members of the Commission are female and not less than 7 are male. A biographical note on the President and 14 Commissioners follows:
MANNING, Maurice (President) An
academic by background, Dr Manning previously lectured in politics
in University College Dublin and has been visiting professor at
the University of Paris (Vincennes) and the University of West Florida.
He is a member of the Senate of the National University of Ireland,
of the Governing Authority of University College Dublin and was
a member of the Governing Authority of the European University Institute
at Florence.
Dr Manning has written several books on modern Irish politics.
He was a member of the Oireachtas for twenty-one years, serving
in both the Dáil and the Seanad. He was a member of the New
Ireland Forum and the British Inter Parliamentary Body. He served
as both Leader of the Seanad and Leader of the Opposition in that
House.
BINCHY, William William
Binchy was first appointed a Commissioner in 2001 and re-appointed
in 2006. William is Regius Professor of Laws at Trinity College
Dublin. He was special legal adviser on family law reform to
the Department of Justice, preparing legislation
on family maintenance, protection of the family
home and domestic violence. As Research Counsellor
to the Law Reform Commission he advised on reform
of law relating to the status of children. He has
represented Ireland at the Hague Conference on
Private International Law in the areas of marriage
and inter-country adoption. He has actively contributed
to public discussion of human rights issues, including those
relating to Travellers, asylum seekers, divorce
and abortion. He is organiser of a programme on
constitutionalism for the Tanzanian judiciary held
in Dar es Salaam, is co-organiser of a training
programme for the magistracy of Botswana and organiser
of the annual African workshop on constitutionalism
for the Chief Justices and senior judiciary of
African states, held in Trinity College, Dublin,
which has been running since 1995. He was a Visiting
Fellow at Corpus Christi College Cambridge for
the Michaelmas term of 2002 and was a member of
the Hederman Committee to Review the Offences Against
the State Acts. He is a consultant to Mr. Justice Dermot Kinlan,
Inspector of Prisons and Places of Detention and has acted as
a consultant to the Irish Department of Justice,
Equality and Law Reform on the justice system of
Timor-Leste.
BRAIDEN,
Olive Olive
Braiden was first appointed a Commissioner in 2001 and re-appointed
in 2006. Olive has worked in the voluntary and community sectors
for over 20 years. She was Director of the Rape Crisis Centre for
10 years. She has been involved in campaigns for legislative reforms
in areas of women’s rights. She commissioned research on
the law of rape in the European Union and commissioned the SAVI
Report, the first national research on child sexual abuse. She
secured State funding to establish training programmes for community
workers in the former Yugoslavia and Kosova.
In August 2003 she was appointed Chair of the Arts Council. She
is a board member of the Courts Services and the Judicial Appointments
Advisory Board. She is also the Chair of the Crisis Pregnancy Agency.
She has served on many Government Working Parties and Steering
Committees. In 2006, Ms Braiden was appointed by the Minister for
Finance to the Public Service Benchmarking Body and by the Minister
for Arts, Sport and Tourism to the London 2012 Olympics Task Force.
Over a period of 15 years, Olive Braiden has lived in Spain, France,
Belgium, UK, Bahamas and Thailand. She completed an M.Phil in Gender
Studies in Trinity College, Dublin in 2003.
BYRNE, Rosemary Rosemary
Byrne was appointed a Commissioner in 2006. Rosemary is a Senior
Lecturer in international and human rights law at Trinity College
Dublin and a Research Fellow at the Institute for International
Integration Studies. Throughout her professional career she has
engaged in research and advocacy in the area of migration, refugee
and asylum law, and has spoken on human rights in over 15 countries.
She has worked with a range of international and Irish non-governmental
organizations and conducted human rights training for the Council
of Europe and the Helsinki Committee. She has been a Government
of Ireland Research Fellow and a Visiting Fellow at the Human
Rights Program, Harvard Law School. Since 2000, she has also
worked in the area of post-conflict justice, establishing the
International Process and Justice project that monitors the trials
underway at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. She
holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Columbia
University and a Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School.
DALY,
Robert Robert
Daly was first appointed a Commissioner in 2001 and re-appointed
in 2006. Robert is an expert on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,
on the psychiatric effects of interrogation and torture and on
the medical aspects of human rights in general. In the past he
represented the Irish Government in the torture case against the
UK at the European Commission on Human Rights, was a member of
Amnesty International’s Medical Advisory Board awarded the
European Peace Prize, advised the American Civil Liberties Union,
and has worked for victims of abuse in Latin American States and
the Balkan Wars. He has evaluated programmes of the European Commission
and the Council of Europe in many parts of the world. He has also
been a trainer for the Committee for the Prevention of Torture,
for human rights workers in the Kosovo conflict, etc. He has served
as an expert witness in numerous human rights-related cases on
both sides of the border and in the UK. He served on the World
Psychiatric Association’s Committee dealing with allegations
of abuse and, when Chairman of the Irish Division of the Royal
College of Psychiatrists, advised the Minister for Health on changes
in Mental Health law. He was formerly Dean of Medicine and head
of the Psychiatry Department at University College Cork, Clinical
Director in the Southern Health Board and a member of the Medical
Research Council.
EGAN, Suzanne
Suzanne Egan was first appointed a Commissioner in 2001 and re-appointed
in 2006. Suzanne has been a lecturer in International and European
Human Rights Law at the Faculty of Law in University College Dublin
since 1992. She is a qualified barrister and holds a Master of
Laws Degree from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto. Prior to lecturing
at UCD, she was the Legal Supervisor of an independent research
centre on refugee law and policy in Canada (1989-1991) and a Research
Assistant at the Law Reform Commission in Ireland (1991-1992).
She is a former member of the Executive Committee of the Irish
Refugee Council. She has published widely in the area of human
rights, particularly with regard to refugee law and policy and
has engaged in human rights training for various non-governmental
organisations, the Council of Europe as well as members of the
legal profession.
FARRELL, Michael
Michael Farrell was first appointed a Commissioner in 2001 and
re-appointed in 2006. Michael was prominently involved in the Civil
Rights movement in Northern Ireland in the 1960s and 1970s and
has campaigned on many civil rights and human rights issues over
the last 30 years. He was involved in campaigns for the Birmingham
Six and other victims of miscarriages of justice in the 1980s and
in the campaign against political censorship under Section 31 of
the Broadcasting Act. He was vice-chair and then co-chair of the
Irish Council for Civil Liberties for most of the 1990s and was
involved in campaigns for gay rights, divorce, equality laws, refugee
rights, against racism, and for the incorporation of the European
Convention on Human Rights into Irish law. He has a M.Sc. in Politics
and was formerly a journalist and author. He is now a solicitor
working for Free Legal Advice Centres Ltd (FLAC) and is Vice Chairperson
of the Law Society's Human Rights Committee. He has taken cases
to the European Court of Human Rights and other international bodies.
Born and brought up in Co. Derry, he lived for 20 years in Belfast
before moving to Dublin where he now lives.
LEAHY, Alice
Alice Leahy was appointed a Commissioner in 2006. Alice is Director
of TRUST which she co-founded in 1975. TRUST is an organisation
based in Dublin which offers health and related services to people
who are homeless. She is a former Chairperson of the Sentence Review
Group.
Alice is also a writer, commentator, broadcaster and lecturer,
promoting understanding of the needs of the outsider in our society
and seeking practical ways to help combat social exclusion. She
lectures widely and has directly contributed to public policy as
a member of various policy bodies such as the Lord Mayor's Commission
on Crime chaired by Justice Michael Moriarty; the Working Party
set up by the Minister for Health to look at the care of the disturbed
mentally ill; and as a member of the National Crime Forum.
Alice's most recent book, With Trust in Place - Writing from the
Outside, which she edited and compiled on the theme of the outsider
was published by Townhouse Publications in 2003.
In recognition of the work of TRUST Alice has received a number
of awards including an honorary doctorate from UCD and Tipperary
Person of the Year Award for 2004.
O’HEGARTY,
Lia Lia O’Hegarty was appointed a Commissioner in 2006. Lia is a graduate of UCC (B.C.L.), University of Michigan (LL.M.) and Harvard University (LL.M.). She was called to the Bar in 1996. She worked as a researcher in the Law Reform Commission for a number of years. She also lectured on an occasional basis at Trinity College Dublin and University College Cork. In 2000 she was appointed Parliamentary Legal Adviser to the Houses of the Oireachtas. Latterly she has set up her own consultancy in legislation and public affairs. In 2007 she was appointed to the Criminal Law Codification Advisory Committee established pursuant to the Criminal Justice Act 2006.
O'HIGGINS, Tom
Tom O'Higgins was first appointed a Commissioner in 2001 and re-appointed
in 2006. Tom is a chartered accountant and is a graduate in Economics
and History from University College Dublin and in Human Resources
Management from Sheffield Business School. He is a former president
of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, a member of the Institute
of Personnel and Development and of the Institute of Taxation.
He was a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers from 1969 to 2000 where
he was a senior audit partner and Head of Human Resources. He continues
to assist organisations in recruitment and human resource issues
and serves as a member of selection boards for the Public Appointments
Commission
and for other bodies.
He is Chairman of the Coombe Women's Hospital, and is recent Chairman
and a member of the Board of Concern Worldwide and is a director
of the Holocaust Educational Trust of Ireland and of a number
of private companies.
A specialist in corporate governance, he is chairman and a member
of the audit committees of a number of State and semi-state bodies.
He is also a member of the Praesta Partners Ireland, an executive
coaching and mentoring organization.
O’Neill, Helen Helen
O’Neill was appointed a Commissioner in 2006. Helen
is Professor Emeritus in the Centre for Development Studies in
UCD where she was its founding-Director. She obtained her BComm
degree at UCD and her Masters and PhD degrees in Economics at McGill
University, Montreal, Canada. She was President of the European
Association of Development Research and Training Institutes from
1993 to 1999, President of the Association of Canadian Studies
in Ireland from 2000 to 2002, and has chaired the Irish government’s
Advisory Committee on Development Cooperation and the Irish Commission
for Justice and Peace. She is a member of a number of international
committees including the policy committee on developing countries
of the International Council of Science (ICSU). She has been a
visiting professor in a number of institutions including the University
of Zambia, the World Bank Institute, and Corvinus University, Budapest.
She has carried out assignments for international organisations
(including the World Bank and UNIDO) in over a dozen African countries
and the trans-Caucasus region. She has acted as expert to the Economic
and Social Committee in Brussels on a wide range of issues in international
relations and regional development and has acted as a consultant
to DG Development and to Irish Aid. She has published widely on
topics in development and international relations and given guest
lectures in universities in all five continents of the world. She
was honoured in 2006 with a festschrift (Trade, Aid and Development,
published by UCD Press).
QUINN, Gerard Gerard
Quinn was first appointed a Commissioner in 2001 and re-appointed
in 2006. Gerard is a professor of law at NUI, Galway. Called
to the Irish Bar in November 1983, he holds a Harvard Doctorate
in Juridical Science (S.J.D.). He is a former Director of Research
at the Law Reform Commission and led the legal research team
of the Commission on the Status of Persons with Disabilities.
He has worked with the European Commission on general human rights
issues as well as on the preparation of EU policy instruments
in the field of disability rights. He was Director of an EU Network
of Disability Discrimination Lawyers and now co-directs a larger
EU Network on Discrimination law across all grounds (age, race,
disability, etc.). He is a former First Vice President of the
European Committee of Social Rights (Council of Europe). He is
a member of the research advisory boards of Land Mine Survivors
Network (Washington DC), Soros Foundation EU Monitoring Programme
on Accession Countries on Disability (Budapest). He was a member
of the United Nations Working Group convened to draft a treaty
on the rights of persons with disabilities. He has published
widely on economic, social and cultural rights, on the rights
of persons with disabilities and on the EU and human rights.
SWEETMAN,
Roger Roger
Sweetman was appointed a Commissioner in 2006. Roger was a solicitor
who practiced (and later became Partner) in Herman, Good & Co. until 1981, when he enrolled in the Kings’ Inns.
From 1979 to 1989 he was a tutor/consultant in Advocacy and Criminal
Law to the Law School of the Incorporated Law Society. In 1983
he was conferred with degree of Barrister-at-Law and was called
to the Bar.
For the next 19 years, he practised at the Bar both in Dublin
and on the Eastern Circuit. Having been appointed to Director of
Public Prosecution’s Dublin Prosecution Panel, his practice
thereafter was mostly involved in crime, both prosecution and defence.
In 2002 he was admitted to the Inner Bar, where he has acted as
leading Counsel, principally for the defence, in serious criminal
cases. He has also been involved in the areas of habeas corpus
and judicial review. As a criminal law practitioner, he has been
involved in enunciating and vindicating the human rights of accused
persons in a range of areas.
TAYLOR, Mervyn Mervyn
Taylor was first appointed a Commissioner in 2001 and re-appointed
in 2006. Mervyn is a former Minister for Equality and Law Reform
and was a Dáil Deputy for over 16 years. He served as
Assistant Government Chief Whip from 1982 to 1987. While in opposition
he held various spokesperson positions including Education, Justice,
Finance and Public Service, Industry and Commerce, and Employment
Equality and Law Reform. He is a practising solicitor for 40
years, apart from the period in which he held Ministerial Office.
He is a former member of the European Monitoring Committee on
Racism and Xenophobia.
ZAPPONE, Katherine Katherine Zappone was first appointed a Commissioner in 2001
and re-appointed in 2006. Katherine is a philosopher, educator
and independent public policy research consultant. As former
Chief Executive of the National Women’s Council in Ireland,
she participated in a number of committees and working groups
at national, European and international level to advocate women’s
social and economic rights and gender equality. She is a former
member of the National Economic and Social Council of Ireland
and has conducted a number of national research projects in public
policy and gender equality, and equality in children’s
education. She is co-founder and Chair of An Cosán, a
large community-based organization in West Tallaght, Dublin committed
to eradicating poverty through education. She lectured for a
decade in Trinity College Dublin in ethics and human rights,
and has lectured in Canada, Australia, Europe, the USA and throughout
Ireland. Widely published in feminism, ethics, equality issues
and education, she conducts research, consults and teaches. Her
work includes: Charting the Equality Agenda: A Coherent Framework
for Equality Strategies in Ireland North and South (2001) and
Re-Thinking Identity: The Challenge of Diversity (2003). She
holds a PhD in Education and Religion from Boston College.
An
academic by background, Dr Manning previously lectured in politics
in University College Dublin and has been visiting professor at
the University of Paris (Vincennes) and the University of West Florida.
He is a member of the Senate of the National University of Ireland,
of the Governing Authority of University College Dublin and was
a member of the Governing Authority of the European University Institute
at Florence. 
William
Binchy was first appointed a Commissioner in 2001 and re-appointed
in 2006. William is Regius Professor of Laws at Trinity College
Dublin. He was special legal adviser on family law reform to
the Department of Justice, preparing legislation
on family maintenance, protection of the family
home and domestic violence. As Research Counsellor
to the Law Reform Commission he advised on reform
of law relating to the status of children. He has
represented Ireland at the Hague Conference on
Private International Law in the areas of marriage
and inter-country adoption. He has actively contributed
to public discussion of human rights issues, including those
relating to Travellers, asylum seekers, divorce
and abortion. He is organiser of a programme on
constitutionalism for the Tanzanian judiciary held
in Dar es Salaam, is co-organiser of a training
programme for the magistracy of Botswana and organiser
of the annual African workshop on constitutionalism
for the Chief Justices and senior judiciary of
African states, held in Trinity College, Dublin,
which has been running since 1995. He was a Visiting
Fellow at Corpus Christi College Cambridge for
the Michaelmas term of 2002 and was a member of
the Hederman Committee to Review the Offences Against
the State Acts. He is a consultant to Mr. Justice Dermot Kinlan,
Inspector of Prisons and Places of Detention and has acted as
a consultant to the Irish Department of Justice,
Equality and Law Reform on the justice system of
Timor-Leste.
Rosemary
Byrne was appointed a Commissioner in 2006. Rosemary is a Senior
Lecturer in international and human rights law at Trinity College
Dublin and a Research Fellow at the Institute for International
Integration Studies. Throughout her professional career she has
engaged in research and advocacy in the area of migration, refugee
and asylum law, and has spoken on human rights in over 15 countries.
She has worked with a range of international and Irish non-governmental
organizations and conducted human rights training for the Council
of Europe and the Helsinki Committee. She has been a Government
of Ireland Research Fellow and a Visiting Fellow at the Human
Rights Program, Harvard Law School. Since 2000, she has also
worked in the area of post-conflict justice, establishing the
International Process and Justice project that monitors the trials
underway at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. She
holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Columbia
University and a Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School.
Robert
Daly was first appointed a Commissioner in 2001 and re-appointed
in 2006. Robert is an expert on Posttraumatic Stress Disorder,
on the psychiatric effects of interrogation and torture and on
the medical aspects of human rights in general. In the past he
represented the Irish Government in the torture case against the
UK at the European Commission on Human Rights, was a member of
Amnesty International’s Medical Advisory Board awarded the
European Peace Prize, advised the American Civil Liberties Union,
and has worked for victims of abuse in Latin American States and
the Balkan Wars. He has evaluated programmes of the European Commission
and the Council of Europe in many parts of the world. He has also
been a trainer for the Committee for the Prevention of Torture,
for human rights workers in the Kosovo conflict, etc. He has served
as an expert witness in numerous human rights-related cases on
both sides of the border and in the UK. He served on the World
Psychiatric Association’s Committee dealing with allegations
of abuse and, when Chairman of the Irish Division of the Royal
College of Psychiatrists, advised the Minister for Health on changes
in Mental Health law. He was formerly Dean of Medicine and head
of the Psychiatry Department at University College Cork, Clinical
Director in the Southern Health Board and a member of the Medical
Research Council.
Suzanne Egan was first appointed a Commissioner in 2001 and re-appointed
in 2006. Suzanne has been a lecturer in International and European
Human Rights Law at the Faculty of Law in University College Dublin
since 1992. She is a qualified barrister and holds a Master of
Laws Degree from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto. Prior to lecturing
at UCD, she was the Legal Supervisor of an independent research
centre on refugee law and policy in Canada (1989-1991) and a Research
Assistant at the Law Reform Commission in Ireland (1991-1992).
She is a former member of the Executive Committee of the Irish
Refugee Council. She has published widely in the area of human
rights, particularly with regard to refugee law and policy and
has engaged in human rights training for various non-governmental
organisations, the Council of Europe as well as members of the
legal profession.
Michael Farrell was first appointed a Commissioner in 2001 and
re-appointed in 2006. Michael was prominently involved in the Civil
Rights movement in Northern Ireland in the 1960s and 1970s and
has campaigned on many civil rights and human rights issues over
the last 30 years. He was involved in campaigns for the Birmingham
Six and other victims of miscarriages of justice in the 1980s and
in the campaign against political censorship under Section 31 of
the Broadcasting Act. He was vice-chair and then co-chair of the
Irish Council for Civil Liberties for most of the 1990s and was
involved in campaigns for gay rights, divorce, equality laws, refugee
rights, against racism, and for the incorporation of the European
Convention on Human Rights into Irish law. He has a M.Sc. in Politics
and was formerly a journalist and author. He is now a solicitor
working for Free Legal Advice Centres Ltd (FLAC) and is Vice Chairperson
of the Law Society's Human Rights Committee. He has taken cases
to the European Court of Human Rights and other international bodies.
Born and brought up in Co. Derry, he lived for 20 years in Belfast
before moving to Dublin where he now lives.
Alice Leahy was appointed a Commissioner in 2006. Alice is Director
of TRUST which she co-founded in 1975. TRUST is an organisation
based in Dublin which offers health and related services to people
who are homeless. She is a former Chairperson of the Sentence Review
Group. 
O’HEGARTY,
Lia
Tom O'Higgins was first appointed a Commissioner in 2001 and re-appointed
in 2006. Tom is a chartered accountant and is a graduate in Economics
and History from University College Dublin and in Human Resources
Management from Sheffield Business School. He is a former president
of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, a member of the Institute
of Personnel and Development and of the Institute of Taxation.
Gerard
Quinn was first appointed a Commissioner in 2001 and re-appointed
in 2006. Gerard is a professor of law at NUI, Galway. Called
to the Irish Bar in November 1983, he holds a Harvard Doctorate
in Juridical Science (S.J.D.). He is a former Director of Research
at the Law Reform Commission and led the legal research team
of the Commission on the Status of Persons with Disabilities.
He has worked with the European Commission on general human rights
issues as well as on the preparation of EU policy instruments
in the field of disability rights. He was Director of an EU Network
of Disability Discrimination Lawyers and now co-directs a larger
EU Network on Discrimination law across all grounds (age, race,
disability, etc.). He is a former First Vice President of the
European Committee of Social Rights (Council of Europe). He is
a member of the research advisory boards of Land Mine Survivors
Network (Washington DC), Soros Foundation EU Monitoring Programme
on Accession Countries on Disability (Budapest). He was a member
of the United Nations Working Group convened to draft a treaty
on the rights of persons with disabilities. He has published
widely on economic, social and cultural rights, on the rights
of persons with disabilities and on the EU and human rights.
Roger
Sweetman was appointed a Commissioner in 2006. Roger was a solicitor
who practiced (and later became Partner) in Herman, Good & Co. until 1981, when he enrolled in the Kings’ Inns.
From 1979 to 1989 he was a tutor/consultant in Advocacy and Criminal
Law to the Law School of the Incorporated Law Society. In 1983
he was conferred with degree of Barrister-at-Law and was called
to the Bar. 
Mervyn
Taylor was first appointed a Commissioner in 2001 and re-appointed
in 2006. Mervyn is a former Minister for Equality and Law Reform
and was a Dáil Deputy for over 16 years. He served as
Assistant Government Chief Whip from 1982 to 1987. While in opposition
he held various spokesperson positions including Education, Justice,
Finance and Public Service, Industry and Commerce, and Employment
Equality and Law Reform. He is a practising solicitor for 40
years, apart from the period in which he held Ministerial Office.
He is a former member of the European Monitoring Committee on
Racism and Xenophobia.
Katherine Zappone was first appointed a Commissioner in 2001
and re-appointed in 2006. Katherine is a philosopher, educator
and independent public policy research consultant. As former
Chief Executive of the National Women’s Council in Ireland,
she participated in a number of committees and working groups
at national, European and international level to advocate women’s
social and economic rights and gender equality. She is a former
member of the National Economic and Social Council of Ireland
and has conducted a number of national research projects in public
policy and gender equality, and equality in children’s
education. She is co-founder and Chair of An Cosán, a
large community-based organization in West Tallaght, Dublin committed
to eradicating poverty through education. She lectured for a
decade in Trinity College Dublin in ethics and human rights,
and has lectured in Canada, Australia, Europe, the USA and throughout
Ireland. Widely published in feminism, ethics, equality issues
and education, she conducts research, consults and teaches. Her
work includes: Charting the Equality Agenda: A Coherent Framework
for Equality Strategies in Ireland North and South (2001) and
Re-Thinking Identity: The Challenge of Diversity (2003). She
holds a PhD in Education and Religion from Boston College.
