Report on human rights highlights Irish housing crisis

Ireland’s housing crisis has been highlighted in a report assessing human rights in 155 countries by Amnesty International.

The State of the World’s Human Rights report has noted that over 4,000 children are living in emergency homeless accommodation while tens of thousands of young people are locked out of the housing market.

Executive Director of Amnesty International Stephen Bowen said this means the Government needs to take bolder and more decisive steps to solve the housing crisis including a referendum on the right to housing.

There is also a spotlight on Ireland’s abortion services in the report.

The organisation has called on the Government to prioritise the implementation of recommendations contained in the abortion services review by Barrister Marie O’Shea which was published last year.

On a global level, Amnesty International has accused Big Tech platforms of stoking conflict.

The report warned that the breakdown of the rule of law is likely to accelerate with rapid advancement in artificial intelligence which, coupled with the dominance of Big Tech, risks “supercharging” human rights violations if regulation continues to lag behind advances.

It said the use of spyware and mass surveillance tools are being used to “encroach on fundamental rights and freedoms”, while governments are deploying automated tools targeting the most marginalised groups in society.

Secretary General of Amnesty International Agnès Callamard said that “in an increasingly precarious world, unregulated proliferation and deployment of technologies such as generative AI, facial recognition and spyware are poised to be a pernicious foe – scaling up and supercharging violations of international law and human rights to exceptional levels”.

She added: “During a landmark year of elections and in the face of the increasingly powerful anti-regulation lobby driven and financed by Big Tech actors, these rogue and unregulated technological advances pose an enormous threat to us all.

“They can be weaponised to discriminate, disinform and divide.”