Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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First, I wish to thank all of the contributors for their helpful and insightful contributions. In particular, I thank them for giving us the benefit of lived experience. I thank Mr. Kearns for telling us the story of his education and childhood.

It is really important that we hear his voice and the voices of others. What comes across most strongly from reading the submissions and listening to all of the contributions is the frustration that, "Here we are again." As a Senator on the justice committee some years ago, I participated in the hearings on the 2015 Act. I know others will share my feeling of déjà vuto be here again, debating how best to legislate for capacity and assisted decision-making in the context where that 2015 Act, as everyone has pointed out, is not yet fully commenced and here we are talking about amending it. It is no wonder Mr. McGrath, Ms Grogan and the rest of the witnesses spoke about the frustrations they feel and the cumbersome nature of this amending Bill that is proposed that is, again, proposed to amend something that is not yet commenced. Unfortunately, we have a very bad Irish legislative history of doing this, namely, bringing forward amending Bills to legislation that has yet even been fully commenced. The Children Act is another case in point. I am very sorry that all of us, particularly all of the witnesses, are having this experience. The Government has now promised this will be commenced for June 2022 with the amending Bills. That timeframe is quite tight and, again, the witnesses have pointed out the issues that have caused for themselves and their organisations. We certainly hear that.

I just wanted to briefly address some of the flaws or issues that the witnesses highlighted, which was very helpful to us. I think it was Dr. Harnett who talked about the more restrictive, unintended consequences that may result. How does she think that point should be addressed? I believe it was Ms Coyle and Ms Grogan who spoke about issues for young people and the rights of younger people. Again, what should we be doing to address that in the Bill? Mr. Dunne talked about other jurisdictions that have dealt with this in a different way. Is there a key lesson or some key improvement we could make to this cumbersome statutory framework drawing upon best practice elsewhere? Finally, we really hear the issues everyone has raised about cumbersome language, inaccessibility and the need to communicate. We hear that loud and clear and will certainly be incorporating that in our report. I thank everyone and would love to hear a little more from them on those points.