Ms Jacqui Browne:

As alluded to by Ms Dempsey, one of the factors impeding the full commencements of the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015 concerns the mental health legislation. There needs to be a revoking of the lunacy Act and a few other Acts, but issues also arise over detention in the mental health service. It is quite intricate. It is too intricate to be discussed today at a meeting of the committee. On the decision support service, Ms Áine Flynn is very much on top of the matter. Let me outline one of the main things that it would be great to see the committee pushing for in order for the decision-making support service to truly work for us, disabled people, especially those who are very marginalised and excluded and often in coercive or controlled settings or relationships that are unhealthy. The decision support service really and truly must be properly resourced with sufficient staff, expertise and everything else to hit the ground running; otherwise we are going to fail.