Ms Sinéad Gibney:

I thank Deputy Canney. I really welcome what he has said. It is important that we work together and as I said in my opening remarks, we, as a commission, stand ready to assist this committee. The committee members will be seeing us again, there is no question.

I will reply to a couple of points raised by Deputy Tully, particularly those around education. The Education for Persons with Special Needs, EPSEN, Act 2004 is not fit for purpose. It is outdated and needs reform based on consultations with people with disabilities and their families. It needs to look at each individual's potential rather than the educational setting into which they are being put. That again plays into the mindset shift and looking at these matters differently.

I cannot answer the question as to why the legislation has been delayed, except to say that we are as frustrated as is the Deputy at that. The Disability (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill was due for commencement but died with that particular Oireachtas in 2016 and has not come back onto the legislative programme. It is up to this committee to get that pressure on all those different items of legislation.

Turning to congregated settings, we have used our legal powers over a number of years in relation to people's dignity and other rights in institutional settings, in particular with respect to the rights of wards of court and the distinction between voluntary and involuntary detention. I mentioned, for example, the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, OPCAT, and the legislation to commence that protocol is important because it allows us to be appointed as the national preventative mechanism. I believe it was Senator Seery Kearney who mentioned the need to look at issues before they arise and identifying them before they become issues. OPCAT would allow us to look at situations where the people involved do not have the capacity to decide whether they are being held in an institution. It allows us to monitor their rights and make sure they will not be transgressed in any way. Those are some of the things I would say around congregated settings. There are significantly higher death rates for people with disabilities related to the higher rates identified for vulnerable people living in long-term care settings, including nursing homes. That is a vital issue at which we look.