Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the witnesses and thank them for their contributions and helpful answers so far. My first questions are for the Decision Support Service. Following Deputy Cairn's earlier comments and when those public consultations came out, we heard a lot of disappointment from disabled persons organisations, DPOs, and from people with disabilities on those public consultations due to the time of year they were conducted during the Covid-19 lockdowns. I want to stress that while some of the very organised DPOs contacted me, I did not have contact from the smaller ones who are working hard and have maybe just a few individuals working off their own bat and without having national funding. To have a very short period of consultation was really prohibitive for many people. That is what this committee and the Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth heard. In future, perhaps that space should be widened and work should be done to support DPOs to ensure their voice is heard. They are very different to service providers and we have been learning constantly from them. On that, I genuinely do not think it was in adherence with the CRPD to not have a broader reach and broader timeline on those public consultations and also due to the time of the year considering the lockdowns and everything that was going on.

The Decision Support Service mentioned the codes of practice and that it worked with the HSE human rights equality policy officer and those stakeholders. I have received feedback from HSE staff on the ground who will possibly be interfacing with decisions being made. What engagement has the DSS had with medical practitioners and the people who will be faced with this on the ground?

I think many of the people at the interface, that is, the stakeholders on the ground with people, do not know what is happening. What is the Decision Support Service's role in that? Is it a singular HSE role and is it not doing that? What role is taken in that process? This brings me back to another point with regard to that functional test and the different results highlighted. What is the organisation's role in training people to understand those codes of practice? It possibly may not have one. No matter how robust the codes of practice, the ball is going to be dropped if people are not trained in understanding them. This means people will not get their rights because an individual, through no fault of his or her own, does not interpret things adequately in terms of what we want under the CRPD. To return to the wards of court, what role or knowledge does the DSS have in respect of the supports people will have if they are released from the system? Will they have housing and financial support? What supports can the DSS put in to support that individuality and independence in order that they can be released? I also have a question for Mr. Clyne but to avoid confusion, I will wait.