Dr. Fergal Lynch:

I am happy to deal with those issues raised by the Deputy. Regarding the suggestion by IHREC of the Minister making an annual statement to the Dáil, we saw that in the letter it wrote to Minister, Deputy O’Gorman and the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, on 11 June last. I have been speaking to the Ministers about that and they will certainly consider it. They are open to looking at that. It is appropriate they would respond to the commission and they will respond shortly. They will also write to the committee in that regard. That is a positive and important suggestion.

Regarding standing for election, it will be of noteworthy value for the committee to learn the Bill we are now preparing includes provision to enable people with disabilities to stand for election. This was previously provided for in the miscellaneous provisions Bill. That is a valuable process for the future.

In terms of the implementation plan and how we will do it, we have started working on it by having initial discussions and preparing what we call a concept paper with the NDIS steering group just this week. We are asking for its view in the next short period. We hope to develop a consultation document by September. We will then consult widely on that in the autumn. We would hope, ideally, to have a draft of the implementation plan by the end of the year, by December, with a view to the Government signing off on an implementation plan early in 2022. That is the timescale we have in mind. As I said, we regard this as an important document that would set the roadmap for how we implement each component of the convention, including elements Deputies and Senators have rightly identified are not adequately covered at present and areas that require more attention.