Mr. Conan McKenna:

It is not my area within the Department. It would be common knowledge that the Government's aim is to ratify the convention this year. As the existing wardship legislation and the old 1871 Act are not compliant with the requirements of the convention in how people's capacity issues are dealt with there is a very strong relationship between the timing of the Government's ratification and the point at which we can say we will have a decisions support service operational. Those issues are being worked out at the moment. We need to get a clear line of sight on the actual establishment of the decisions support service; the relationship between that and the ratification of the convention is slightly difficult and must be worked through. There is also legislation in the form of the Disability (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill which is going through the Houses, as members will be aware, in which a number of other measures must be introduced to facilitate the application.