SOLAS strives to proactively prevent and eliminate discrimination, promote equality, and protect the human rights of its staff, service users, customers, and everyone affected by its policies and procedures. It is committed to embedding human rights and equality matters across its organisational functions. 

This commitment is now strengthened by a legal obligation called the Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty, which has come about as a result of section 42 of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Act 2014.

The identified groups are those covered by the nine grounds under equality legislation: gender (including gender identity), civil status, family status (including lone parents, carers), age, sexual orientation, disability, race (encompassing race, colour, nationality and ethnic or national origins), religion, and membership of the Traveller community; those at risk of poverty and social exclusion, including working class people, people experiencing rural disadvantage, and ex-offenders; those at the intersections of these groups, being member of more than one group; and individual rights holders under relevant human rights instruments.

The Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty places equality and human rights at the heart of how public bodies carry out their functions, with the potential to positively transform how public bodies engage and interact with their own staff and the wider public. It encompasses two interconnected Duties: the overarching Duty and the strategic Duty.

The overarching Duty is an ongoing requirement on public bodies, under Section 42(1) of the Act, to have regard to the need to eliminate discrimination, promote equality, and protect human rights for service users, policy beneficiaries, and employees, across all function areas.

The strategic Duty, a targeted Duty to be undertaken by public bodies as part of their strategic, planning and reporting cycle under Section 42(2) of the Act, requires public bodies to:

• Assess: establish the equality and human rights ssues that affect identified groups and that are relevant to the functions and purpose of public sector body organisations.

• Address: establish plans, policies and actions that are in place, or that will be put in place to address these equality and human rights issues. 

• Report:  report each year on developments and achievements in the implementation of the Duty and in addressing equality and human rights issues. 

In 2021, SOLAS began its journey to work toward implementing the Duty. A working group was formed with fifteen staff from ten units in SOLAS and engagement with our Senior Leadership Team began. Under the guidance of Values Lab, the working group developed five equality and human rights benchmarks that are set out in its Implementation Plan emerged as part of its Implementation Plan and that establish SOLAS's ambitions in implementing the Duty. 

As a result of our commitment to work towards implementing the Duty, SOLAS have published an Implementation Plan and Action Plan which can be found below.

SOLAS is a leader in its commitment to progress and implement the Duty to a high standard, and to meet its objectives and ambitions. We are continually working to embed the Duty through working groups, annual work plans, and progress reports, made accessible to the public. SOLAS will report on progress, achievements and key moments made to advance the Duty in our annual report, policies, corporate plan, and wider strategic plans, while our working group will continue to guide, develop and monitor the successful implementation of the Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty. 

To learn more about the Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty please visit here: https://www.ihrec.ie/our-work/public-sector-duty/

For queries related to SOLAS and the Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty, please email publicsectorduty@solas.ie.