Those who administer and promote justice should “look more closely at the meaning in law of social and economic rights,” Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said at a Mass to mark the opening of the new legal year.

Preaching at St Michan's Catholic Church in Dublin 7 on 1 October 2018, the Archbishop said that the anxieties of the marginalised must be recognised, within a legitimate economic framework and while respecting the limitations of policy forged in the political sphere.

"Human rights cannot simply be abandoned to the category of vague aspirations," he continued.

Those who administer justice must find ways to "bring to policy a reflection and a language in which the anxieties of the marginalised are more truly understood and recognised," the Archbishop told the congregation which included Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan and Attorney General Seamus Woulfe..

He pointed to Brexit as a “troubling force” for disunity but said that justice "will never be attained by polemics and polarisation".

Unity

"Unity is fostered by a society and a culture that brings to our attention the factors, which exclude from the unity the benefits that each citizen is entitled to attain," he said.

He reiterated that the legal profession "is called to scrupulously respect the unique dignity of every individual and of the various categories of those who could easily drift into being permanently marginalized".

The Archbishop said that the UN had not fully risen to its challenge of unity within the great family of nations.

At St Michan's Church of Ireland, the Archbishop of Dublin, the Most Reverend Dr Michael Jackson, preached at a service to mark the new legal year, together with the Archdeacon of Dublin, the Venerable David Pierpoint. 

Reverend Barry Forde, Dean of Residence, Queen’s University, Belfast, also preached at the service.