Ms Áine Flynn:

The panel referred to is a panel of decision-making representatives. We are able to make nominations from that panel at the request of the court, but that is only at the top level of support. We have a panel of professionals, all of them vetted and trained. We have met all of them and they come from a range of professional backgrounds and are able to step into that decision-making representation, DMR, role.

As regards the situation the Senator describes, though, I think one of the lower tier supports might be appropriate but may not even be required. One of the key principles of the Act is that people are to be supported as far as possible in their independent decision-making, so there should not be a rush to assess capacity, and the new tools for support which are available on the lower tiers of the framework should be thought of as problem-solving tools to be deployed only as required.

In the circumstances described, it may be that the lady would benefit from a decision-making assistant. It does not sound like the middle tier, a co-decision-making agreement is indicated. However, she may actually benefit from other external parties having a good sense of the Act and if it is somebody's will and preference to involve another person who is able to support them in gathering and understanding information, then that is the tool for support which should be facilitated before the rush to formalise.

In terms of access to information, members may be aware that we have a lot of information available via the DSS website. I am conscious of the limitations of online and of it not suiting everybody so there is information there in a range of formats ,including easy-read materials, video guidance and so on. I urge people to have access to that but, where they cannot, we operate an information services team. We are very busy. The demand for information is constant. I encourage anybody in that situation where they feel they are in an information vacuum to contact our team where we have real, living, breathing people who answer the phone all day and deal with a huge diversity of queries. That is a freephone number and I commend it to people.