Ms Siobhan Barron:

The source of that data was some research undertaken by the Economic and Social Research Institute in the past five years. The findings do not differ significantly from data in other countries such as Canada and the United States.

The assisted decision making legislation will focus strongly on capacity to engage and a presumption of capacity in the first instance, which will be very important. Having listened to the contributions, it should be noted that developments in mainstream services, including in the non-governmental sector, will make much of the difference. The work being done under Cosc - the national strategy, as it were - is very important because much of this will be about consent and capacity, as well as awareness in respect of people who are victims of violence. There is a lot happening to a funding stream under Cosc so that organisations can review their materials and decide what activities they do to reach out to people with disabilities to enable them to avail of services. Of equal importance will be the availability of counselling supports, the right skill sets and awareness to the Garda and others.