Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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If we agree to the Minister's proposals, does this have an impact on other Acts currently legislated? For example, with regard to the whole issue of disability I know that previous legislation that dealt with capacity and people with disabilities did not require the person to have had a diagnosis or a disability to have their capacity assessed. In fact, it took the very functional approach to decision making rather than a status based approach. This means that if one is assessing the capacity of a person with a disability other legislation did not look at the diagnosis or the label in order to assess capacity; it was a functional approach rather than a diagnosis. How does this legislation fit in with other legislation considering that we have taken that approach in the past for people with a disability? It was not based on a diagnosis, it was based on their ability to make decisions.