Dr. Frank Conaty:

I wish to emphasise and support what Mr. O'Connor said, but the issue of decongregation has been a persistent and ongoing difficulty for the State for decades, and we have not solved it. We have allowed it to continue through policy deficits. It is not the pandemic that has caused this, but the pandemic is giving rise to greater risks for people in these congregated settings. I will point out just one risk to human rights that will persist if we continue to have people in congregated settings. Since 11 March, people have been in residential settings that have been essentially shut down, and these people have been confined to home without access to family. We might say the position is similar for elderly people cocooning. Many of these people nevertheless need access to family as their immediate advocates. That access has not been available. The fractures in the policy architecture we now see this pandemic showing up have always been there but it is clearly within our gift to address and correct them.

The UNCRPD is the pathway to doing that and we need to be real about its application and implementation.