Ms Caroline Walker-Strong:

That is a slightly different role from what the independent advocates do. When people go into places claiming they are advocates but are not from a formal body, the family does not have a right to complain and there is no mechanism for family members to express their concern about who that person is.

In the context of the education and training of advocates, abuse of older people is so wide that it is difficult to say there is one type of training that fits the bill. There is financial abuse, which means there is a need for people who understand accountancy, money, how money can go missing and the exchange of money. People with an understanding of human rights, who will assume at the start that the person has capacity, are also needed. We tend to have a culture in Ireland of assuming at the start that certain groups do not have capacity. We need to move towards a culture and practice where we assume someone has capacity. That is the starting point. That is where we are looking for a better scope of practice around the advocates, their work and what they are doing.

This would be as much for the advocates themselves, so that they do not step into territory that is outside their scope of practice and that they would know that something has become criminal or something in which they need to involve another member of a multidisciplinary team. It is to have a rounding on it.