Ms Patricia Rickard-Clarke:

That is where the Assisted Decision-Making Capacity Act is extremely important. I have seen it in the courts where the family is making the application to sell the house in advance. We now have Decision Support Service oversight so if a court order is made to appoint somebody to deal with somebody's property, it must be used for the benefit of that person. Under the previous legislation, say during the time of the joint powers of attorney legislation of 1996, as there was no oversight of attorneys, there was a lot of financial abuse including attorneys again not paying for care or collecting the pension of the person concerned but also selling a person's property. Under the new legislation, the Decision Support Service has a specific function of oversight in relation to any of the decision's supporters who are appointed under the Act. It will look when they are appointed for a schedule of assets and income, including potential income, and then will overview that on a periodic basis. That is a huge plus in the new legislation.

Another thing I will mention in respect of selling homes is in terms of equity release schemes about which I am hearing ads at the moment. While some people may want money to be released, before the recession a lot of older people assisted people such as their sons or daughters and ended up without a home over their heads so we have to be very careful about that. Obviously it is an option people have and they have the right to exercise it but it is a risk that people must be aware of. The other issue regarding entering into an equity release scheme is that if you subsequently apply for the fair deal, that is a first charge and you may not be entitled to a fair deal loan. There are issues there. We have raised them with the Central Bank as well to ensure all of those entities are properly regulated and that there will be a warning put in the forthcoming consumer protection code to highlight some of these issues.