Mr. Vivian Geiran:

I thank the joint committee for the invitation to the Irish Association of Social Workers, IASW, to present to it.

My name is Vivian Geiran and I am the chairperson of the association. I am joined by Ms Celine O'Connor, who is a social worker with experience of working in and managing safeguarding services, and we are joined by video link by Ms Sinéad McGarry, a social worker experienced in safeguarding practice. I acknowledge the specific input of Dr. Sarah Donnelly from the UCD school of social policy, social work and social justice, who is the Irish Association of Social Workers' academic safeguarding adviser and who worked with us on today's submission but cannot be with us this morning.

The Irish Association of Social Workers, IASW, was founded in 1971. There are almost 5,000 registered social workers in Ireland and the IASW is the national representative body of the profession. We have members working in various service areas, including children and families, mental health, probation, primary care, disability, hospitals, and with migrants among others. Social work is the named lead profession for child protection and adult safeguarding in Ireland tasked with the primary responsibility for policies that support people at risk of abuse and neglect, including children and adults with disabilities. Social workers work with people with disabilities in their homes and communities, disability services, nursing homes, homeless services, direct provision centres, prisons and other settings across Ireland. We work with many adults with disabilities who have never been formally assessed or supported by a disability service. In this context, adult safeguarding failures in any setting may impact upon people with disabilities.

Focusing on safeguarding in congregated settings and the requirements of Articles 16 and 19 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, social work champions a human rights-based approach to safeguarding recognising that safeguarding is equally about promoting the rights, autonomy and well-being of a person as it is about protecting people from abuse and neglect. It is in scenarios and cultures where rights are overlooked, well-being is ignored and a person lacks choice and autonomy in his or her own life that abuse is most likely to occur. The values of the social work profession, therefore, very much align with the values of the UNCRPD.

Adults with disabilities in congregated settings comprise one of the least protected groups and, compared with children, have far less legal protection in their own home. It is a stark fact that legal protection from abuse, neglect and exploitation decreases for every person, including a person with disability, when he or she turns 18 years of age in Ireland. Our separate written submission document elaborates our position, which is that Ireland is not meeting the requirements set out in Articles 16 and 19 of the UNCRPD. Our move toward de-institutionalisation, where people can live according to their will and preferences, is unacceptably slow and safeguarding within existing services is far too weak.

We have limited data on safeguarding in Ireland. While we know 51,000 concerns about the abuse and neglect of adults have been reported to the safeguarding and protection social work teams since 2015, it is unknown how many of these relate to people with disabilities. The IASW has established that apparently 143 sexual assaults against residents in care settings were reported to HIQA from 2015 to 2022. Eighty-seven of these reported sexual assaults were in nursing homes, where many people with disabilities reside, and 56 were in disability centres. We have also established that An Garda Síochána cannot provide figures about the rates of abuse and neglect of residents in nursing homes or disability centres reported to it.

Concerns about the response to the abuse of adults, including adults with disabilities, regularly enter the public domain. The media reported concerns in Leas Cross in 2006, in Áras Attracta in 2014 and in the Grace and Brandon cases, the events of which spanned decades. Media reports also highlighted delays in reporting alleged sexual abuse of unconscious patients in Naas hospital, failures in the management of safeguarding concerns in HSE community healthcare organisation, CHO, area 7, and reported a pattern of safeguarding failures in HSE CHO area 1. Despite a recurring national outcry in the aftermath of each revelation, little seems to have changed for the better, and events of recent months alone show how little Ireland is adhering to the principles set out in Articles 16 and 19 of the UNCRPD.

In comparison with child protection and despite being lead profession in adult safeguarding, social work faces very real challenges in influencing the governance and management of adult safeguarding and practice through our human rights lens and approach. We encounter the same medicalised model at strategic and practice level as that described by people with disabilities, which does not adequately address their needs. Our separate submission document details our views on the key challenges and solutions. These include the urgent enactment of safeguarding legislation based on appropriate principles, including the UNCRPD; the establishment of an independent statutory adult safeguarding authority; appropriate legal mechanisms to support social workers to do their work; mandatory reporting of abuse and neglect of adults; and adequate data collection and research.

In respect of the gap involving new adult safeguarding legislation, we also call in our more detailed submission for a number of interim measures that should be taken as a matter of urgency. The rights of people with disabilities to live lives where their will and preferences are respected, where their well-being is supported and where they are protected from abuse and neglect must be vindicated and upheld. This is not happening, in the view of the IASW, and it will take a collective effort across all relevant bodies and wider society to change this.

I again thank the committee again for its time and attention. We welcome the opportunity to answer any questions.