Ms Patricia Rickard-Clarke:

First, I will deal with Senator Kelleher's questions. The figures can be confusing. We do not have comprehensive data but the 10,000 refers to the research that the National Centre for the Protection of Older People did in 2010. It did not cover people who lacked capacity. The high risk areas are the people over the age of 90 who lack decision-making capacity. It did not include people in residential services. The cohort was quite confined. The 32,000 is a general extrapolation based on international figures and our own figures.

The Senator asked about the interaction between An Garda Síochána and others. The offences that the Senator identified, particularly theft and fraud, operate significantly in respect of vulnerable people. The vulnerable person is left to report it. Someone asked about emotional or psychological abuse, the vulnerable person may be under huge pressure not to report. My view is that if it is a crime the Garda should intervene, and another State authority to ensure support for the person. That can be done by anonymous reporting but we do not have any system in place for that even where it is clear that a crime or offence has been committed. We do not recognise that there is a large cohort of vulnerable people in our society who need protection.

The UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities considers the question of people being able to exercise those rights. It also provides that we need safeguarding protection for people in vulnerable situations. We have a huge gap.

In response to the question of the HSE being the body responsible for the provision of the service and the funding and the investigation, while I hear what Mr. Healy says about audit teams and external panels, that is in the CHO, it is not general around the country or in non-governmental organisations, NGOs. That is only starting. There are very good organisations such as Sage which have that internally but there is a need for external oversight. That has to be the independent national safeguarding authority as provided for in the Bill. That is extremely important.

That leads to the question of mandatory reporting or not. If there is an external authority and proper systems in place such that people know how to escalate internally and there are external panels they do not need to escalate everything. However, they need a robust authority with right of access and investigation when it is needed, meanwhile the systems are working to prevent abuse. We have nothing in our systems to prevent abuse, no overarching standards or guidance. The HSE have some but, for example, banks do not even know that things are going on. I mentioned shared services, they do not know or understand.

We have not addressed the fact that we have an ageing population who may be in be in very vulnerable situations. This beings us back to Senator Burke's point. Our systems are honed in on money laundering but are not facilitating people. We do not have systems to accommodate people in certain circumstances. We need to be very aware that people may need to be safeguarded against abuse. Our mentality and thinking has not got to grips with that issue.

Deputy Kelleher asked whether the Bill hits a lot of the points we are making. I would say we need an independent authority with a right of access and all the rest. I also welcome the section of the Bill providing for an internally mandated person. The Bill attempts to define what we are talking about, which is something that is really needed. I agree that we are talking about a person at risk, but how should that be defined? As Senator Kelleher has said, such questions need to be put to the Minister. We need a framework that will enable systems and processes of prevention to be put in place so that we are not arriving at critical situations.

Before I ask Ms Lennon to talk about decongregated settings, I will deal with some of Senator Burke's questions. Mr. Fitzgerald has mentioned the whole area of home care provision. The Law Reform Commission recommended the regulation of home care services, which is extremely important. A disability (miscellaneous provisions) Bill has been introduced to deal with the issue of access. It will provide for the right of a person to decide to get care at home. If we have that, we need to have robust home care regulation. I refer not only to service providers, but also to what happens in the home. My own experience has been that Government Departments shy away from the home and do not want to go there. If one is aware that a vulnerable person is being abused, one must have a mechanism to deal with that. I would come back again to the systems we have in place to prevent abuse in the first place.

I would like to speak about the issue of having enduring powers of attorney. In 2009, the Council of Europe recommended that State parties were to ensure that older people had advanced health care directives and enduring powers of attorney in place. We have no national campaign, even though that has been demanded for a number of years. The Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015 will deal with many of the points that are being made about having a decision-making assistant or a co-decision maker in circumstances in which someone still has capacity but needs a lot of assistance. As members will be aware, the 2015 Act has not yet been fully commenced. It has been in the process of commencement for a long time. We badly need it. Some of our bad practices, particularly in dealing with people whose decision-making capacity is in question, can be dealt with fully under that legislation, which recognises their rights. I am aware that the director of the decision support service started in that position this week. I hope that as a result, the commencement of that legislation will now start to be accelerated.

Wardship is a denial of human rights. It is 1871 legislation. We have not yet realised that in reality. The sooner we get the commencement of the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act, the better. I emphasise strongly that we need to commence section 3, which relates to the assessment of capacity, and section 8, which sets out the guiding principles, immediately. They could start tomorrow. They are already part of the common law. They are already part of the HSE consent policy. They are already part of the Medical Council guidelines. I do not understand why we do not start those two sections immediately because it would enable people to start planning and would assist the whole issue of prevention.

I would like to come back to the barriers. Advocates cannot get in. We go for total informality in our system. We do not realise we need to face up to the fact that we are dealing with people who are growing older and becoming frail and vulnerable. Some of them have huge capacity, but they are sometimes ignored. Those who cannot physically go into the bank to do what they have to do need assistance that is provided in a correct and appropriate manner. I emphasise that much of the abuse that happens is possible because we do not have a system to recognise the vulnerability of such people. There needs to be far more co-operation between all organisations. I ask Ms Lennon to address the question of decongregation.