Mr. Gary Lee:

I will take both questions on the convention together. Ratification is an important step, but it is only the start. The world will not change for people with disabilities as soon as Ireland ratifies the convention. The treaty gathers existing rights and includes them in one comprehensive instrument, but, under the convention, there is an obligation to raise awareness of disability issues. I have no doubt that the Minister of State is committed and wants to see the convention being ratified, but the State has left it on the long finger. It was not a priority, but now as soon as it is under pressure to ratify, suddenly the Government is trying to sort things out in the disability Bill which was rushed and is approximately half the size and half as comprehensive as it should be.

Ms O'Connor mentioned the deprivation of liberty. If there was the political will, this could be done, but the Minister of State does not have the support of a political party behind him and is not a member of the Cabinet. There may be issues in that regard. It is not for the want of trying on his part, but he is up against the system. At the end of the day, it is a bad signal to send to people with disabilities. If the Government is not prepared to sign an international treaty which North Korea signed before Christmas, it sends a signal all the way down the line and ends up in scenarios where abuses could happen. There is a direct line between what is done at the top and what happens at the bottom. Implementation will be important. As soon as we ratify the convention, we will need to be in a position to make sure it is implemented and that people with disabilities can monitor its implementation, as required under Article 33.

On the difference the convention will make and the difference in the rights of people with disabilities have in the United Kingdom compared to those living in Ireland, one can take an individual complaint to a UN expert committee where his or her state has breached the convention. Within two years of signing it, the Government will be reviewed by the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities.

Thereafter, a report will be done every four years on the Government and how it is progressing the rights of people with disabilities under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Until we ratify it, that does not come into play. I would say the Government is concerned about resources and their allocation. I am concerned in the meantime that resources are being eroded. They have been eroded. If members look at the joint statement the Disability Federation of Ireland, the Centre for Independent Living and other organisations launched yesterday, which details what is needed and which we can make available to members, they will see it is a resource issue.

Decisions that fundamentally affect the rights of people with disabilities to engage in society in the same way as their non-disabled peers can engage - such as those about personal assistance services - can be made at the stroke of a pen. There is no accountability. There is no proper independent administrative tribunal available to people to question decisions that are made that affect their lives. As I mentioned earlier, there are some 30 non-statutory schemes under the Department of Health that many people rely on with regard to engaging with the community and living in society. In the UK, there are tribunals. If a decision is made and one is unhappy with that decision, one can appeal that decision to an independent body. They are some of the differences.

Again, we would look for personal assistant, PA, hours. Mr. Michael McCabe will talk about personal assistant services shortly, so I do not want to go into too much detail. With the PA service, the leader - that is the person with the disability - can direct the service. That person can decide what time to get up at in the morning, what to have for breakfast, what to wear, where to go out, how to use his or her time, whether to go shopping or whatever else, rather than being told that assistance will be available at a certain time. Personal assistance can enable people to do these things that others take for granted. They are not then dependent on family members or friends. That changes the dynamic of their relationships. If one is relying on family members or friends as carers, then one is really changing the dynamic of the relationship with that person.

We have engaged with HSE teams. It varies from region to region. There are some fantastic people trying to do much within limited budgets. There are other people who are driven by figures and budgets. The system itself needs to be reviewed and changed. I will give specific examples. I can think of one man in his 40s who went in to hospital for a procedure and who had never lived in an institution. He had always lived at home, initially with his parents, and with personal assistant services. He went into a hospital for a procedure. As he was in hospital, he lost his PA hours. Following the procedure, he was required to take medication. There are issues about whether personal assistants can give medication to leaders - the people with disabilities that they are serving. In that particular case, he moved from the regional hospital that he was in. He refused to go into a nursing home, which is where he was being directed. He went into a community hospital. I visited him on numerous occasions during the two years that he was in that community hospital. During that time, there were people coming and going. People were dying in a ward beside him. He shared the ward with three other people. At one stage, the ward was closed for a number of weeks because of an outbreak of some illness or another and he could not get in or out. He was directed to the nursing homes support scheme - the fair deal scheme - to get a nursing home, because that is where the money was.

We thought that perhaps we could judicially review the decision on his situation. Eventually, after two years, some creative accountancy was done and hours from older age support were given to him to enable him to live back in his house. The local authority was very good. It kept his house for him for the almost two and a half years that he was in hospital. It was only because of his determination that he managed to secure those hours that enabled him to go back to living in the community.