Ms Áine Flynn:

Dealing with Senator O'Loughlin's first point, adults means those over 18 years for the purposes of this Act and every adult has the presumption of capacity.

As to people who have bona fide interests in the welfare of a relevant person, that could potentially apply to anybody but will be subject, in certain cases, to the leave of the court. There are a number of people who do not need the leave of the court in order to so act and these are the top tier group. I could be an applicant under Part 5 of the Act and certain categories of persons do not need leave of the court. In other cases, there will be an interim stage where the court will have to engage with the person bringing the application and, perhaps, assess their bona fides. Yes, families may come into conflict in that. I mentioned earlier that we will have a certain role in addressing that and the court may have to assess the competing positions of different family members as to whether they should step in to a formalised role or not.

The Senator asked about a family member receiving money by way of an inheritance. That is exactly the sort of thing that might be amenable to support, bearing in mind always - and this is a point I would seek to emphasise - that somebody with an intellectual disability may well be about to manage that inheritance without stepping into a formal structure under the Act but the stepping off point is not to think how we go formal with this but rather to try to shore up somebody's independent decision-making to see if that is something that he or she can manage himself or herself. On the face of it, managing an inheritance, or any kind of property decision around that, is something that could come under the formal support of the Act.

Substituted versus supported decision-making is a day-long conference in itself. Article 12 of the CRPD is subject to varying perspectives and, as I mentioned, the State at the time of ratification entered a declaration that if substitute decision-making is something that is prohibited by CRPD - the convention does not explicitly prohibit it but the interpretation of the convention by the committee for the convention does - the State is then still going to have substitute decision-making very much as a last resort, as I set out in my statement. There are all kinds of competing perspectives and a great deal in the literature about that.

It is important that the fact we provide for substitute decision-making does not mean that that is the default option of choice. We need to be careful that decision-making is facilitated and supported on those lower tiers far as possible, bearing in mind that substitute decision-making is still a matter that is subject to the guiding principles, including the individual's will and preference.

In terms of ensuring that this can really happen next year, I have mentioned our dependencies and they are fairly straightforward and are the ones that might always arise. We need support for our resourcing as to the continuing budget allocation. We will be addressing that in the Estimates process and we will be looking at what we think we need to open our doors and to operate a service for the second half of next year, together with sanctions for posts, and so on. The importance of getting that amending legislation through and the whole regulatory framework is going to be essential to our operations.

We must feel for the wards of court who have been brought into wardship because of the delay. Here is a structure that was promised and while waiting for it people have continued to be taken in through the front door of wardship. I have mentioned the route out of the back door and these individuals will be amenable to that review process and can seek to have their applications heard on day one, when the new service commences and I hope that many may take up that offer.

On the GALs, I know that the wardship court has been somewhat creative about ensuring representation and hearing the voice and I know that my colleague, Ms Macklin has looked somewhat at those guardians ad litemand parallels with the panels that we will operate. We have looked at those mainly around identifying, resourcing and recruiting those panels but our hope is that with that access to the court, to representation and to legal aid, that the voice of both the relevant person coming into the system and the current ward who is being reviewed potentially out of the system will be heard very strongly in court.