The Government has failed to fully support the new Human Rights Commission set up under the Belfast Agreement, Sinn Féin president Mr Gerry Adams said today.
On the General Election campaign in Dublin, Mr Adams said the next government must fully back the commission, set up alongside a similar Northern body following agreement.
He said the Commissioners in the Republic had been appointed only after "considerable controversy".
He added: "There has been a failure to provide the administrative and resources back-up that the Commission requires to do its job properly.
"The establishment, on a proper working basis, of the Human Rights Commission in this part of Ireland, as provided for in the Good Friday Agreement, must be implemented by the government.
"There is a perception that the obligations of the Good Friday Agreement apply only to people of the North - this is not the case.
"This has to be dealt with as a matter of urgency."
Mr Adams said the Commission's role of providing an island-wide Charter of Rights was being blunted by the lack of Government support for the Republic's Commission.
Meanwhile, Dublin West Sinn Féin candidate Ms Mary Lou McDonald called for the establishment of a Department for Children with its own minister.
The portfolio falls to a junior minister, currently Ms Mary Hanafin, within the Department of Health and Children.
Ms McDonald said the "abuse and exploitation" of Irish children was evidence of the need for a specific department to protect the Republic's young.
In a reference to the sex abuse scandal rocking the Catholic Church, she said: "These abuses were possible because some of the most powerful institutions in our society were given control over the least powerful."