Mr. Adam Harris:

I agree with Dr. McDonagh. There have been significant delays in legislation across the board, whether concerning adult safeguarding, inspections of places of detention or deprivation of liberty. The timelines are very unclear regarding these various pieces of legislation. There also needs to be significant care in how each of these pieces of legislation interact with each other so that we do not treat one category of people with disabilities different from another, as is the case for those with psychosocial disabilities at present. Critical across everything we say on this issue is that the starting point has to be to listen. That is the central thread that runs through the UNCRPD. Even when we looked at the assisted decision-making legislation in place, a concern raised at the time was that there was not enough time to hear the voices of DPOs and those who would be most affected by the legislation. While we need to move at pace, we cannot afford to make that mistake once again.

I thought the point about widening our understanding of what we mean by deprivation of liberty was very important. We saw examples during the pandemic when key passes were installed in places like nursing homes without residents' consent or them being given the same support. We see it in our school system, where there is still a complete dearth of regulation around seclusion and restraint. It is an area where people have the fewest rights in any setting in Ireland. We need to broaden our understanding. I draw the committee's attention to the recommendations IHREC made in the submission on the general scheme of the inspection of places of detention Bill in 2022. One recommendation was the need to broaden the range of settings in which that legislation will apply to include places such as healthcare and residential settings, voluntary organisations offering addiction services, State-procured services and so on. It also stated that the State must strengthen the procedural safeguards governing involuntary admission in line with international human rights law.