A/HRC/19/9 34. The Irish Human Rights Commission and the Equality Authority will be merged to form a new strengthened and enhanced Human Rights and Equality Commission. 35. The new body will fully comply with the Paris Principles and the State party is confident that the International Coordinating Committee will be able to grant “A” status to this new body. 36. Funding will be provided to enable the new Human Rights and Equality Commission to function effectively and independently in accordance with the Paris Principles. 37. Currently, unemployment stood at a little over 14 per cent. This was a great challenge. The Government had introduced some measures designed to allow people to improve their skills or to find employment and had encouraged unemployed people to return to education. 38. In addition, the State Work Training Agency had been reorganized and refocused to improve and make the training provided more relevant. 39. On matters related to prisons, the Criminal Justice (Community Service) (Amendment) Act 2011 introduced a requirement on judges when considering the imposition of a sentence of twelve months’ imprisonment or less, to first consider the alternative sanction of community service. 40. Particular concern was expressed by the Committee against Torture on a proposed large-scale prison building project. The State party had appointed an expert group, which had reported that smaller units of accommodation would be sufficient for needs and would meet the objective of ensuring that the prisoners had hygienic, in-cell sanitation facilities. 41. The Irish Government remains committed to protecting the position of the most vulnerable in society. A core principle of the social protection system is that both nationals and non-nationals can access it equally. The habitual residence condition was however, applied to both Irish and non-Irish applicants. 42, The State party reported that, in the last month, some form of supplementary welfare payments had been made to 115,000 non-Irish nationals. In addition, child benefit payments had been made to the non-Irish parents of over 215,000 children. About 20 per cent of those aged 18 or under living in Ireland are the children of non-Irish parents. 43. The Government was committed to developing a system of universal health care where treatment would be provided on the basis of assessed medical need rather than ability to pay. This was a radical change and would take time to put in place. The driving force behind these changes was the improvement of services for patients. 44. A study published last year revealed lower life expectancy and other areas of concern, such as a higher suicide rate than in the rest of the population, amongst Travellers. 45. To tackle these concerns, national and regional fora had been established, with Traveller participation, to advise on how services could best be delivered and also advise on implementation of the national intercultural health strategy as it affected Travellers. 46. Despite the national constraints, Ireland was determined to maintain efforts to help the poorest people and communities in Africa and elsewhere. This year, Ireland had provided €659 million in aid for programmes in some of the poorest regions in the world. 47. In the aid programme, there was a firm commitment to support State institutions and independent organizations that promoted human rights, governance and democracy in developing countries. 6