Ms Sarah Lennon:

Deputy Durkan raised a very important point on decongregation. It is dangerous but it cannot be an ideology. He has asked for reassurance. There is much we can do but we cannot reassure about everything because there is risk to living in the community. Every one of us experiences risk on a daily basis but there is a huge dignity to that risk. In some ways, the unpleasant aspects of the community have to be part of a development process for people, albeit we have to remember that there are people who have been in institutional care for 40, 50, 60 years or more to whom we have a huge responsibility. That is an important point. We have contributed to their disability and we have to remember our responsibility to them.

The UNCRPD defines an institution as promoting isolation, segregation, lack of control, lack of choice, rigidity, identical activities and being under authority and paternalism. In terms of risk and reassurance, if that is the alternative, then how bad can the community be? Statistics show that 150 people moved out in 2015, 27 of whom went to nursing homes. Some 53% moved in with four or more people and only 9%, or about 14 people, moved into their own accommodation.

Although I do not want to throw the cat among the pigeons and we still have work to do in terms of the 2,600 people still in an institution today, the next conversation we need to have is in the context of group homes and houses where four or five people live with people who they did not necessarily choose to live with or who are not their family. I mean family in the broadest sense, including people who might want to start a family or have a partner of their own. The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has defined a smaller group home as an institution if it fits the definition of one. It is not about how many people reside there. We spoke about ten people or more for a congregated setting in Ireland but the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is very clear that it does not matter how many people live in the property, rather, if it meets its definition of an institution then that is what it is. We need to bear in mind that as we move past congregated settings, the use of community group homes will have to come under scrutiny.