Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 15 February 2022

Joint Committee On Children, Equality, Disability, Integration And Youth

General Scheme of the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) (Amendment) Bill 2021: Discussion (Resumed)

Mr. John Dunne:

This has been going on for a long time. Nobody was held accountable for that. A whole system was set up to protect these people and their interests yet when the system did not do its job right, everybody walked away quietly and whistled. There are families still struggling to come to terms with that. I will be honest. I do not see a way in which to avoid having something in the background which will, ultimately, step in and anchor things. This legislation is anchored on very strange, shifting sand. It is not very visible but it is there. What the Senator talked about is just one manifestation of it. I can think of several others in the legislation.