Freedom of association

Generally speaking, participants considered the protection of human rights in Ireland to be strong, albeit with some challenges. For instance, over the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic had entailed very difficult trade-offs between human rights and restrictive measures to avoid the spread of the virus. 

With regard to freedom of association, participants' main concern was the unintended effects of the Electoral Act on CSOs: the Act governed donations to political parties, but the rule limiting private and foreign donations also applied to CSOs. The government had expressed its intention to address these issues and discussions were ongoing on amending this provision in the law. There were also sometimes issues related to the destination of funding: for instance, public funding was received for providing services and not for developing advocacy campaigns, making resources for advocacy more limited. Organisations with a generic mission such as "protection of human rights" were not considered charities, 
which had a negative effect on their access to donations and prevents tax exemption of donations. The need for tax exemptions could also lead to some not-for-profit organisations scaling back advocacy work. Some organisations had experienced a significant drop in their income due to the pandemic and its limitation of fundraising opportunities. To obtain emergency funding from the state, an organisation's income needed to have dropped by 25%.

CSOs felt they had good access to, and were properly consulted by, the authorities, but said they would like an expanded social dialogue like in the past. During the pandemic, consultations had moved online, a trend which one participant warned could lead to the exclusion of people without access to digital infrastructure.

Participants explained that Brexit had not yet impacted most CSOs. Some organisations, for instance in the field of sport, encompassed the whole of Ireland, while others were divided. However, they were expecting difficulties to come in relation to EU funds for cross-border activities.

The Constitution granted strong protection to peaceful protest. During the pandemic, measures had been introduced limiting movement and participation in events, and no exceptions had been made to enable participation in socially distanced protests. This had led to random application of the rules: in some cases protestors had been threatened with prosecution or fined for taking part in or organising protests, whereas others had been allowed to proceed without interference.