Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Fianna Fail)
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Before we begin, I take the opportunity on behalf of the committee to extend sincere sympathy to the Cathaoirleach and his family on the passing of his sister Eimear. Ar dheis Dé for raibh a h-anam.

The purpose of today's meeting is to discuss freedom from exploitation, violence and abuse for persons with disabilities. On behalf of the committee, I extend a warm welcome to Dr. Rosaleen McDonagh, disability rights activist, writer, member of the Traveller community and co-author of the Irish section of the report by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, and Dr. Lucy Michael, academic and co-author of the Irish section of the report by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. We are joined online by Ms Susan Kennefick and Ms Nevena Peneva from the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights and Mr. Liam Herrick, chief commissioner at the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC.

Before we commence, I will provide a note on privilege. All witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory with regard to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction. The evidence of witnesses physically present within the confines of the parliamentary precinct is protected pursuant to both the Constitution and statute by absolute privilege.

I remind members of the constitutional requirement that to participate in public meetings, they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex. Members of the committee attending remotely must do so from within the confines of Leinster House.

Members are coming and going so I ask for the understanding of witnesses. We are running a little late and members have other commitments so they will be in and out. I invite the witnesses to make their opening statements.

Dr. Lucy Michael:

I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach for the opportunity to address the committee. I am director of an independent Irish research consultancy specialising in equality and human rights. I am joined by my colleague and co-investigator Dr. Rosaleen McDonagh. We are appearing today as authors of the Ireland research reports commissioned by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, EUAFR. We speak in our capacity as researchers and authors of the Irish findings and not on behalf of the agency. I will address the findings of the research while Dr. McDonagh will follow with our recommendations.

The Ireland fieldwork involved interviews with people who have lived in institutional care, relatives of current residents, front-line service provider staff, representatives from human rights bodies and NGOs and dedicated safeguarding professionals. We also conducted extensive desk research drawing on HIQA inspection reports and HSE national safeguarding data.

The first and most important finding is that Ireland does not know the true extent of violence and abuse against disabled people in residential care. No national data is published on abuse cases in residential institutions.

Safeguarding professionals told us directly that incidents are significantly under-reported and frequently go unrecognised as abuse at all. One interviewee put it to us as follows:

We don't know, because so much stuff is not reported. And sometimes, abuse may not be reported, because it's not understood as abuse.

I will turn to the data we do have. HIQA inspection reports identified 4,825 human rights violations in residential disability services in a single year. The HSE National Safeguarding Office recorded over 13,700 safeguarding concerns in the most recent reporting period before our report, with 71% relating to disabled people. The most commonly documented violation, making up nearly a third of all cases, was services failing to protect residents from abuse. Our research documented a wide range of abuse types. Inspection records we reviewed frequently described residents being punched, kicked, hit, verbally abused and threatened. In our interviews, we heard from disabled people and services providers that residents often retreated to their bedrooms because they did not feel safe in communal areas.

Restrictive practices, including physical restraint, chemical sedation, locked doors, CCTV monitoring and seclusion have been used at enormous scale. Our desktop review highlighted the work of Dunbar et al, showing that in a single 12-month period, over 48,000 uses of restrictive practices were notified from disability residential facilities. Financial abuse emerged as a serious and systematic issue across all participant groups. Neglect was also widely documented, and that included residents being put to bed early, receiving cold or late meals, left in rooms for extended periods with no activity or social connection.

Three structural failures make all of this worse. First, Ireland has no adult safeguarding legislation. Every stakeholder group we interviewed identified this as the single greatest gap in Ireland's protection framework. Current policies were described as words on paper without legal force or consistent application. Second, complaint mechanisms are not safe for people currently living in institutional care to use. Service providers and complaints bodies themselves acknowledged this. Residents and families described how advocating for change resulted in them being excluded from facilities by staff, families having little or no contact or ability to change the nature of their relations' experiences. The National Advocacy Service had waiting lists of up to 12 months in some regions at the time of our research. Third, oversight has critical blind spots. HIQA cannot investigate individual complaints, and inspections in some facilities occur as infrequently as once every three years. Numerous reports highlight the difficulty of meeting with residents, which was also raised by our participants. A particular gap concerns children with disabilities placed with private providers, who fall under Tusla inspection rather than HIQA, which was a division our research participants identified as inadequate.

Finally, institutional culture normalises abuse. Staff who have worked in the same settings for decades often do not recognise long-standing practices as harmful. The move to smaller group homes has not resolved this. We found smaller settings can reproduce the same power imbalances, particularly when people with complex needs are concentrated together. Beyond individual incidents and individual failures, our research identified structural conditions in the workforce and in governance that create the environment in which abuse persists. These are areas where this committee’s recommendations can have direct impact.

First, high staff turnover and heavy reliance on agency staff creates direct safeguarding risks. Service providers described being unable to maintain consistent staffing, with agency workers rotating across different residential settings. When an abuse allegation involves an agency staff member, the service provider has no authority to investigate or sanction them.

Second, safeguarding policy is applied inconsistently across community healthcare organisations. Three service providers described significant variation in the implementation of safeguarding frameworks in practice, including whether they accept community safeguarding referrals at all. The level of protection a resident receives currently depends on where in the country they happen to live and needs national standardisation.

Third, safeguarding policy is almost entirely reactive. It is built around reporting and responding to abuse after it has occurred. Participants across all groups noted that there is no equivalent policy infrastructure focused on prevention to minimise the conditions in which abuse arises in the first place. A prevention-first framework requires deliberate legislative and policy design.

I will hand over to Dr. McDonagh, who will address what must be done.

Dr. Rosaleen McDonagh:

I am a co-author of the Ireland findings in the FRA report Dr. Michael has introduced. I am also a disabled woman, with a PhD in disability studies. I am speaking today in my capacity as a researcher. I am not speaking on behalf of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency.

I want to use my time to be direct about what needs to happen. The findings are serious. We believe the recommendations we have made can be actioned. Ireland has no safeguarding legislation for adults. We need primary legislation that creates a mandatory duty to report abuse, clear procedures for investigation and intervention, and accountability when those duties fail. The Law Reform Commission published two recommended Bills in 2024. We are asking this committee to ensure those Bills are enacted without further delay. Every year without them is another year in which people in residential care have no enforceable right to protection. The Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act must also be fully implemented. At the time of our research, delayed implementation left many residents without anyone legally authorised to make decisions with or for them.

HIQA's powers must be expanded. It should be able to investigate individual complaints directly. Inspections must happen more frequently. The gap in oversight of children with disabilities placed with private providers currently inspected by Tusla rather than HIQA must be closed. These are not acceptable blind spots in a rights-based system. The Ombudsman and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission should take a more active role in receiving complaints and providing oversight. The Ombudsman for Children has shown what proactive engagement looks like. There is no reason that cannot extend to adults.

Complaint mechanisms must be genuinely safe for residents to use. That means independent external channels separate from service providers and the HSE. It means properly resourcing the National Advocacy Service so that no one waits 12 months for an advocate while living in fear. Legislation and oversight are necessary. They are not enough on their own. The charity model remains deeply embedded in Irish residential services. It must be replaced decisively by a rights-based approach.

That requires mandatory in-person training on safeguarding, trauma-informed care and human rights. Online training has not driven the cultural change that is needed. This requires genuine investment in supported independent living, not simply moving people from large institutions to small ones that reproduce the same problems. An Garda Síochána must receive consistent, mandatory training to engage with people with disabilities. Abuse in residential settings is a crime. It must be treated as one. Disabled people must be involved directly in policymaking, in monitoring and in evaluation. The people whose experiences are documented in this research were largely invisible in the systems that governed their lives.

The FRA research makes clear that Ireland has not yet met its obligations to disabled people in institutions under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This committee has a role to play in enacting the legislation. It can also look at how to resource the oversight. Most importantly, how do we ensure that disabled people can be heard in these processes, given the problems with complaint systems we described? We are happy to take members' questions.

Ms Susan Kennefick:

I thank the Leas-Chathaoirleach and members of the committee for the invitation. The initiative to comprehensively discuss this topic should be commended. The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights is the European Union’s independent human rights agency. We provide advice to EU institutions and member states to promote rights-compliant law and policy, particularly when they are implementing EU law. FRA is also a member of the EU's UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities monitoring framework, which is similar to an independent monitoring mechanism at national level.

The report that we are presenting today examines the issue of violence against persons with disabilities living in institutions across Europe. At this point, allow me to say that much of what has been described by Dr. Lucy Michael and Dr. Rosaleen McDonagh is reflected across the European Union. Institutional care remains widespread in the EU despite legal and policy commitments. More than 1.4 million people with disabilities in the EU live in institutions.

Persons with disabilities face heightened risks of violence and barriers to justice, and there is a major gap in comparable, EU-wide evidence.

The timing of our report is key, given that the EU was reviewed by the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities last year, resulting in concluding observations, many of which are relevant to institutionalisation and the violence people in institutions experience. The European Commission is set to adopt an enhanced version of its ten-year disability strategy today, to which FRA has submitted recommendations, based on the findings of our report, that renewed efforts in respect of deinstitutionalisation and preventing violence be given a heightened priority.

Dr. Michael and Dr. McDonagh have spoken to specific Irish findings but overall, a key finding of FRA research was that addressing violence in institutions requires dismantling their underlying structural foundation built upon a normalisation of institutional culture, attitudes that label disabled persons as different or misfit, and the provision of care according to the medical model of disability.

Compounding factors include: insufficient resources, namely budgets and staff; a lack of rights awareness; and the absence of recourse or effective redress. This latter element is particularly concerning - the fear of losing the provision of care, regardless of how unfit that care is, creates a normalisation and acceptance of violence. Atop all of these elements, we see the manifestations of violence, some of which Dr. Michael has already outlined. Many explicit examples make it into the media or to public inquiries, but the interviews we carried out with persons with lived experience spoke to a wide breadth of violence, including subtler, more dehumanising examples such as neglect, financial abuse, over-medication and deprivation of liberty.

Based on the findings, we can conclude that violence against persons with disabilities in institutions is not incidental. It is systemic and it requires systemic change in respect of three distinct elements. First, we need to strengthen protection. This means embedding human rights standards in law, prohibiting all forms of violence, and enforcing accountability so that human dignity is upheld in every care setting. Second, we need to prevent violence at its roots. This means ensuring strong, independent and wellresourced monitoring systems, with regular oversight of institutions and effective followup and real enforcement. Third, we need to ensure credible responses. This means guaranteeing accessible, safe and confidential reporting mechanisms, preventing retaliation and secondary and repeat victimisation, ensuring accountability and access to effective remedies.

Given the brief time I have left, I will mention only some recommendations contained in the report. I am happy to go further in detail later on. In the first instance, we recommend that efforts are intensified to close institutions. We recommend: that an assessment is carried out of the compliance of laws and regulations with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; that monitoring approaches are harmonised and strengthened; that monitoring bodies are independent, resourced and have sufficient teeth; that accessible, safe and confidential reporting mechanisms are put in place; that institutional staff, monitoring teams, the police and Judiciary are adequately trained in engaging with victims with disabilities; that joined-up responses and referrals between all responsible authorities are created and enhanced; that victims are protected where they come forward; and that reliable, timely and comparable data is collected.

FRA is in the middle of a broad roll-out with the report at national level. Following a successful round-table with many relevant stakeholders in Dublin in March which was co-organised with the IHREC, which has been our close partner for many years, we are replicating this in other member states. We firmly believe that, while we can put forth the evidence, change must be driven at the national level, by actors who have a deep understanding of local contexts and landscapes. We have been encouraged and inspired by the force with which national partners have resonated with this work, and have taken it to new levels. This discussion today is testament to that, and we commend the committee, once again, on it.

I will leave it there for now. I thank the committee, once again, for the invitation, and for the committee's attention. I, and my colleague, Ms Peneva, are happy to answer any questions the committee may have.

Mr. Liam Herrick:

I thank the members of the committee for the invitation to appear before them today.

I want to, first of all, echo the words of our colleagues in the Fundamental Rights Agency by saying that we welcome and commend the committee giving this focus on violence against persons with disability in institutional settings, and specifically this report from the Fundamental Rights Agency, which poses a simple but profound question, that is, "Are places of care truly places of safety?"

The findings are that for too many people in Ireland today, the answer is unfortunately "No".

It is important to say at the outset that this is not a legacy issue. It is not about the institutions of the past. We all know our difficult history of institutions. It is about people living in institutions right now, today, across Ireland. Some of the most serious human rights violations in our society continue to occur behind the doors of health and social care settings. Institutionalisation must end and violence within institutions can never be accepted as normal, inevitable, or benign. This report confirms what disabled people, their families and advocates have been telling us for many years. Violence, coercion, financial abuse, restrictive practices, over-medication and neglect persist in institutional settings. These harms are enabled by systemic failures, such as fragmented oversight, inadequate complaints mechanisms and, critically, gaps in our legislative framework.

We must acknowledge that some progress is happening and important work is under way. The national policy framework on adult safeguarding has been published. The National Human Rights Disability Strategy for Disabled People 2025-2030 contains important relevant commitments and revised HIQA standards are being developed. We must acknowledge these important and welcome steps, but the bottom line is that the pace of change remains too slow. This is an enduring problem that must be met with a much greater sense of urgency and true political leadership. Many of the key recommendations that disabled people urgently need are still not likely to be implemented in the near future. Adult safeguarding legislation remains unpublished. Protection of liberty safeguards have been years in development, but are still not listed for priority publication in the summer legislative programme.

With the promised abolition of wardship, we are moving away from an outdated system, but we note that the initial timeline for ending wardship has been missed and 1,000 people remain in that system today. Without a rights-based, statutory framework for deprivation of liberty, many disabled people still lack basic legal protections. Their liberty and autonomy cannot wait and legislative reform in this area is now among the most urgent human rights issues facing our society. It is not just about legislation. The legislation must be supported by operational guidelines, resources, oversight and accountability mechanisms.

I made reference to the national human rights strategy for disabled people which includes many promising and visionary commitments. It commits to learn from the Farrelly report, but learning is not enough. We now need concrete action, implementation and legislative delivery. Adult safeguarding and protection of liberty safeguards must be treated as urgent priorities. A strategic commitment to de-institutionalisation must also remain central to our response. The FRA report is unequivocal. Institutionalisation itself creates the conditions in which abuse flourishes. It segregates people, limits autonomy and concentrates power in ways that increase risk. The most effective safeguard in the long term is to ensure people can live independently and be included in their communities. That will require investment in personal assistance, housing, community supports and flexible services that follow the person. Without that investment, institutionalisation will continue and the risks that accompany it will too.

Finally, I emphasise that IHREC, as Ireland's national human rights and equality body, has a number of potential specific roles that are relevant to this context. Under the optional protocol to the UN convention against torture, it is anticipated that IHREC will become the co-ordinating national preventative mechanism.

We believe that will need to extend to an oversight of health and social care settings as well. These are places where people may be deprived of their liberty in practice, even if they are not formally legally detained. It is essential that this understanding of detention is recognised clearly in legislation and policy discussions. It is of course urgent that the inspection of places of detention Bill is published and passed by the Oireachtas as soon as possible.

We also have a role as Ireland’s independent monitoring mechanism under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Ireland’s review under the CRPD will take place next year. This engagement with the UN expert committee will put a spotlight on Ireland's wider record on protecting the rights of persons with disabilities. Close and specific attention will be paid to the question of institutional settings.

The UN committee has specifically sought information on violence, abuse, oversight, advocacy, and deprivation of liberty. These issues will be prominent in that process. I thank the committee members for their time this morning and I look forward to answering any questions they may have.

Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Fianna Fail)
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I thank all the witnesses for their opening statements. I will now invite the members of the committee to put their questions. When I call on members to speak, I ask them to adhere to the agenda that is scheduled for discussion. I will call members as per the speaking rota. Members have seven minutes, to include the replies from the witnesses. Members should allow time for that.

Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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Gabhaim buíochas leis na finnéithe go léir. When we talk about safeguarding of those with disabilities, be they children or adults, as was said earlier, we usually only talk about it in a reactive way. We hear about a disaster or a horrible situation and scenario and then it goes off the agenda again when that is dealt with, whatever "dealt with" means. I was taken with the idea of looking at preventative measures rather than reactive. We all get the idea of an ethos and a culture that exists in institutional care, even where it is not necessarily traditional institutional care. That ethos has remained. Then it is the variation between what we are talking about - what is not best practice versus what is absolute abuse and violence and that there is no misunderstanding in relation to what is wrong. The witnesses have already said it. We know that legislation is outstanding.

Legislation and improved powers to HIQA do not matter without resourcing. We know that it needs to be delivered. On some level, we should look at it from a point of view of examples to see what exists at the minute, the absolute failure to protect people and what we need to do to step in and ensure that does not happen. Could the witnesses give particular mention to those who are nonverbal, who obviously have a particular issue in relation to explaining their circumstance of abuse or bad care? I do not think we are anywhere next or near providing the protections for those people. I am not entirely sure who wants to answer that.

Dr. Rosaleen McDonagh:

I do not really know what the answer is, or how to respond, other than to say it is widespread and everywhere. Even when I was talking about myself and giving interviews, I know from lived experience that people do not always tell people about the extent of what has been done to them or the lack of care afterwards.

In these systems, where people report abuse in these homes, the staff are supported through employment law, but the service users are usually treated almost similar to a whistleblower. There is no response. There is no offering of therapy or counselling. It is almost a system where it is easier if people do not speak up. There is the issue of withdrawal of services when people report. Many were interviewed and said that they reported that it became even worse in subtle, nuanced ways. It would be wrong for people to read our words and infer that everyone who works in service providers is an abuser. They are not. They are good, decent people who find it difficult to witness and to report in support of service users. Trauma is involved in the whole system.

My only wish as a disabled person would be that the world can see this as a crime. Instead, there is always a visit and a response which stresses a lack of training. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission and services will be more resourced. It is really important that, in the interim, there is independent advocacy. No one has an independent and neutral source of knowledge and experience. Lastly, people who are non-verbal are vulnerable anyway and must be accounted for.

Mr. Liam Herrick:

To follow on from what Dr. McDonagh said, specifically on the question of resources, we need to acknowledge that there are structural challenges with the way care is being delivered at present, which are not unrelated to the problems that we have. Shortages of staff, the use and reliance on agency staff, questions about training, professional regulation and oversight are real issues which will need to be addressed, but they need to be based on having a solid legislative foundation first of all. The point that Dr. McDonagh makes is important. Certainly, in our engagement with stakeholders, it is worrying to hear that because the problems of resources are so endemic for so long, they are often understood as explaining or even excusing what are essentially violations of human rights or criminal offences. The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission conducted research on access to justice for people with disability, and this profound problem of the difficulty of having prosecutions when disabled people are the victims of crime, whether in the community or institutions, is a real challenge.

It is a challenge for the criminal justice system, for An Garda Síochána and for the DPP but it is a real issue that needs deeper concern. We note that in its report in 2024, the Law Reform Commission proposed a number of specific criminal offences that needed to be introduced into law but we understand that there has not been any progress on bringing that forward at present.

Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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It is obviously needed. Dr. McDonagh took up a very particular issue with regard to a service user reporting and then being isolated and not given those supports so this is something we really need to draw down on while accepting that we need a system that is not reactive along with a proper ethos, guidelines, a legislative framework and all the resourcing. What was raised was a disgrace.

Ms Susan Kennefick:

Deputy Ó Murchú mentioned prevention. In the report, we found that effective monitoring is central to preventing violations. The research we carried out across the EU shows a really diverse landscape and a lack of any standardised guidelines, including within countries. Countries that work on a federal basis would have a lack of standardised guidelines with different standards and methodologies being applied. One of our key findings is that there is a clear need to harmonise monitoring practices. This can also be achieved by integrating violence prevention measures as a prerequisite for licensing and accreditation and by setting minimum standards in monitoring that are complemented by factors that can be disaggregated such age, gender and disability sensitivity.

While we found many gaps and shortcomings, one thing we did ask for across member states involved examples of good practice that could be transferred to other member states and from child protective services to the disability landscape. We found an initiative in Germany that involves persons with disabilities acting as peer evaluators who conduct interviews in institutions. There are a few other examples about setting up internal monitoring mechanisms that are built on peer evaluations and trustee mechanisms. We found that these seem to be well respected and well used.

Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Independent)
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I thank the witnesses for the presentations. Some of the detail in them is almost frightening and difficult enough to understand. What are the reasons for the abuse and the level of abuse in congregated settings, taking the view that these are settings with trained managers, professional staff and supporting staff? Looking in from the outside, one would imagine that this would be as safe an environment as one could think of but obviously it is not. What are the reasons for that?

What is the situation regarding statistics? Is there under-reporting? If so, do we know the extent of that under-reporting? The barriers to reporting were already referred to by Deputy Ó Murchú with regard to retaliation. What specific legislation is required to address this difficulty?

Dr. Lucy Michael:

The Deputy asked about the reasons for abuse levels in these environments and the lack of statistics. When we began the fieldwork for this study, we were struck by the fact that almost all of the stakeholders we spoke to in this area presumed we would want to speak only about residents' interactions with one another and not about the behaviour or professionalism of staff in the sector.

When we introduced that, we found professionals were inclined to speak to us about it. Often the people we were speaking to were professionals engaged in the safeguarding and oversight piece within service providers. They felt they were hampered by the lack of implementation of a legal framework. There are excellent professionals within the sector who find that within their own organisations they cannot enforce and implement stronger protections for residents because there is no legal framework to back them up. There is a lot of goodwill within the sector and a lot of professionalism within the sector but the fact that all of this hangs on a policy framework which has very little legal enforceability is hampering all of the good work that might happen there.

Dr. McDonagh and Ms Kennefick also mentioned the ongoing issues with stress in these institutions. The reduction of size of institutions has not reduced that. The power dynamics remain the same. Mr. Herrick also talked about the normalisation of low resources. Monitoring, as Ms Kennefick said, is really key to this. We found that professionals within institutions described the periodic inspections as insufficient to create a culture of accountability. That is really what we are looking for - not only a culture of professionalism, but a culture of accountability. That monitoring must include the engagement of residents. Often in the inspection reports HIQA was only able to meet with one or two residents. Residents' families described to us the disappointment of their relations at not being able to speak directly to external bodies. The national advocacy service provides an important voice there. We already spoke about that.

Turning to the lack of statistics, one issue Dr. McDonagh raised is that much of this assault or abuse is not dealt with as criminal activity. An Garda Síochána is rarely called in these incidents. When it is, the gardaí do not necessarily have the training. We do not have a huge amount of data from this study. There were both good examples of practice from An Garda Síochána and examples where, clearly, more training would have been helpful. The reality is that it happens on such a rare basis that there simply is not an established protocol.

The Law Reform Commission has recommended the expansion of domestic violence legislation into residential institutions to deal with just this kind of scenario. That is not currently in Government commitments. I hope that has filled in some of the picture for Deputy Healy.

Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Independent)
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I thank Dr. Michael.

Dr. Rosaleen McDonagh:

I would like to add, there is a cultural paradigm where disabled people in general are disrespected, undermined and not seen as humans. Our status is eroded and often abuse starts off as bullying, which usually we are told is bantering or having fun. Then we move to coercive control where a staff member will encourage other service users to pick on somebody. Then you have group violence that the staff collude in and encourage also. This is in real life, outside of the report. I know currently of people with their hands tied as restrictive behaviour, or having towels tied around their mouth. These are not 1950s behaviours. They are not from the 1980s or the 1990s. They are happening now, in 2026.

I also want to note, while Mr. Herrick puts context on why violence might happen because of resources, I would say in any context violence is not excusable.

The amount of money and resources that goes into training is quite a lot. It is not minimum. I would argue that while staff resourcing and relying on relief staff is an issue, violence is so normalised that it is easy to look at resourcing as a response to it. I do not think it is fair and I do not think it really acknowledges what violence towards disabled people is.

Ms Susan Kennefick:

Sorry if I am jumping ahead. I want to pick up on some points from Dr. Michael and Dr. McDonagh. Dr. Michael mentioned there is no legal framework. There is also an outdated standards framework across all of the member states and the three observer countries that we looked at. In those 30 countries we found no examples of the standards that monitoring bodies and institutions hold themselves up against. None of them were updated post ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD. When a monitoring inspection is carried out, those monitors look at things like the size of the room or whether a person is receiving three meals a day, whereas under the UNCRPD there is a recognition by all EU member states and the EU itself that persons with disabilities have the same rights on an equal basis to everyone else. However, the standards and the monitoring scope have not been updated to reflect this. It is still not really monitoring the standard of life that people have in institutions.

Deputy Healy questioned the reasons. One of the key reasons we found in every country was a total lack of alternatives. People are very aware that if they kick up a fuss and make a complaint about the quality of care they receive, care may then be removed from them and they are left with no alternative and no other route they can take to get that care. Their family members are also quite concerned about this. They are also sometimes reluctant to make complaints on behalf of a victim.

Regarding data collection, there is no agreed definition of what an institution is or what a congregated setting is across the European Union. Therefore, it is extremely hard to collect data on the people who live in closed institutions. Ireland was one of the better examples we found where we were able to gather some data on the lives of people in institutions but there is still a long way to go, including in Ireland and the rest of the European Union.

Liam Quaide (Cork East, Social Democrats)
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I apologise to the witnesses for being late. I am really glad we have this focus in today's session. It is really important.

One of the most striking aspects of disability service provision in Ireland is the sheer fragmentation of services. We have, I think, 493 organisations providing disability services on behalf of the HSE between section 38 and section 39 services, private providers, for-profit providers, the HSE itself and some out-of-State providers. Does that fragmentation and increasing privatisation of services have an influence on the risk of exploitation and harm to disabled people?

Dr. Lucy Michael:

I am happy to take that question. Starting with public services, we can see that, even within the HSE, stakeholders described to us inconsistent application of standards.

Due to the nature of standards and the nature of implementation, it is impossible to guarantee equal implementation across the regions. When you then multiply service provision out to multiple providers of different types, sizes and levels of experience, we see enormous variation. To speak specifically to the findings of the study, we spoke to a range of service providers. Some of them were enormously impressive in terms of the investment they had made in training and in hiring experienced staff from within Ireland and abroad who brought a huge professionalism to increasing standards within their organisations. At the other end, we saw in HIQA reports institutions that were repeatedly found to be wanting, not only in regard to basic safety issues of living conditions but also in respect of neglect and incidence of abuse arising. In any sector that is fragmented in the way that disability services is, there is likely to be a significant variation. I would not say in this case the private providers are necessarily worse but the variation is a concern to us. This is why so many of the professionals within service providers said to us that the legal framework has to be implemented. They rely on it. For them, trying to work towards that culture of accountability I spoke about earlier and trying to work with those responsible for inspections, such as HIQA, and those engaged in monitoring, was so important.

We talked about the labour turnover within the sector earlier. There are very low wages and there is very low job security in many cases. This is about the competitive pricing within the sector that drives wages down as well. That is also a concern because, of course, staff can move from institution to institution bringing that lack of the culture of accountability with them. I certainly would identify fragmentation as an issue but not necessarily in a simplistic way.

Mr. Liam Herrick:

To add to that, the fragmentation of services is one level of the problem, and the fragmentation of oversight mirrors it. That is very clear from the report. It is a problem across Europe. It is a particular problem in Ireland. It is a problem because there is a number of different monitoring bodies with different overlapping competences. There are gaps and areas where there is no effective oversight, and it is a particular issue with regard to the question of complaints. Some people in institutional settings do have access to complaint systems but others do not. There is a gap in people being able to access advocacy services, particularly the National Advocacy Service, for the purpose of making a complaint. Then, as the committee has heard on a number of occasions, there is the question of people facing repercussions for making complaints.

The other aspect of fragmentation is in terms of linking it to the question of institutionalisation. There has not been enough progress on de-institutionalisation in Ireland but there has been progress in moving from very large institutions to much smaller settings. On a superficial level, that is de-institutionalisation but if that is not done with a sensitivity to the rights and needs of specific individuals, the problems from the larger institutions can be replicated in the smaller ones. I am particularly mindful of the example that was given earlier of non-verbal people, or, for example, people with hearing disabilities or deaf people. If they are moved to a smaller setting where they have no access to Irish Sign Language or otherwise, they can be in a worse situation.

The fragmentation is a particular feature of the Irish environment, as the Deputy knows, in that we had a system of privatised provision of services by religious bodies at one point and we now have moved to a different privatised model in which there are often for-profit bodies. Both pose, and posed in the past, problems of public oversight and accountability; it is just manifesting itself in a different way. The legislation which has been proposed would go a long way towards addressing this problem. There is a solution in place if there was political leadership and will to make that happen.

Liam Quaide (Cork East, Social Democrats)
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I was just going to ask about that. The Law Reform Commission published very comprehensive legislation on safeguarding in 2024 and I think there is unanimity among the interest groups that this is the way to go and what will provide for safeguarding across all sectors in society.

It is somewhat perplexing that it is not being followed through on after all that work. Do the witnesses have any thoughts on what are the barriers to that? Is it the sheer amount of co-ordination between Departments that needs to happen? Do we know if there a financial implication that is a barrier?

Mr. Liam Herrick:

All I can say to that is that we have made significant submissions to Government on the safeguarding issue going back over seven or eight years. I acknowledge the progress that Government and the Oireachtas has made. The passing of the Mental Health Act is a very significant step forward with regard to that sector. We understand that the inspection of places of detention Bill, which will also be an important safeguarding measure, is hoped in the coming term. However, we have two key pieces of legislation in the protection of liberty safeguards Bill, and the health (adult safeguarding) Bill 2026 and there is no sign of progress of those through the legislative process. It is not clear to us why that is the case. One thing we would call on the committee to achieve as a result of today's hearing is to raise that with Government. There is a long-standing Government commitment, including the previous Government, to advance these two important pieces of legislation. There is a broad consensus of what is needed and we are not seeing political prioritisation.

Dr. Rosaleen McDonagh:

My appearance here with Dr. Michael and Mr. Herrick is to have the softer angle but the reality is many of us who are disabled, regardless of our age, gender or impairment, have all experienced a level of abuse that is not acceptable in any context. Although we did not deal with sexual violence directly, it was there. It is always a good situation when people do not tell you everything. There is a shadow. There is also evidence, be it anecdotal, that care workers, for reasons Dr. Michael highlighted, move from one service to another and with that movement bring bad practices. As well as legislation, there is also a role for disabled people organisations, DPOs, to name this as an important issue going forward.

I would also say to FRA, in a very respectful way, two things. While Ireland may have appeared better compared to some regions, it is still not enough. I would add, in this area of violence and disabled people's rights, we need to see disabled people central to research that is monitoring the decision when all other objects are there to fuel knowledge. We need to be adamant and disciplined in order to prevent violence. I want to say lastly, and I have said this again and again, something that feeds into this is intersectionality.

If you are black, a Traveller or you have a particular type of impairment - mostly a learning or intellectual or impairment - or because of your gender, you are at much more risk of violence and abuse in care settings.

Laura Harmon (Labour)
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I thank the witnesses for their presentations this morning. I was tuning in online and heard their opening pieces. What I am hearing are some very clear recommendations for legislation coming out of this committee meeting this morning. There are issues with the complaints processes; obstacles in regard to accessing advocacy; and perhaps a lack of data in some respects. There is a need for DPOs to be involved and, obviously, for the voices of disabled people to be at the forefront. There is a need to tackle the intersectionality piece as well with regard to those who might be doubly at risk.

On the data piece and collecting disaggregated data on abuse in care settings, who do the witnesses think should be responsible for this? Could they clarify that piece? Dr. McDonagh talked about the intersectionality and the disadvantage there. What areas do we need to be focusing in on with respect to making sure that is joined up and in regard to policy? Is there a need around staffing in different care settings and for particular training and monitoring to be implemented? Are there recommendations there in regard to particular pieces?

Dr. Rosaleen McDonagh:

I will hand over to Dr. Michael on the data and I will do the other bit.

Dr. Lucy Michael:

I thank Senator Harmon. I am sure Ms Kennefick or Ms Peneva will want to come in on the data piece. From my own perspective, I have been working in the area of equality and human rights research for more than 20 years now. There is often a sense that the data exists for data's sake. The whole purpose is to drive improvement in this area. That is why we are interested in the availability of data. We are fortunate that the Health Information and Quality Authority, HIQA, data and the HSE safeguarding data are as voluminous as they are but the inability to tie that up and understand how the patterns in it are occurring is the challenge. I think this is fundamentally tied to the implementation of a legal framework, which is fundamental to how we think about data going forward - not about trying to produce data in the current environment but tied to the implementation going forward.

When we look at Government commitments to safeguarding legislation at the moment, what we see is that it reproduces the current HSE-HIQA relationship within a new framework, whereas the recommendations previously had been for an independent safeguarding body. Ideally, a framework that establishes that would have that independent safeguarding body, social work-led, that would be responsible for the collection and analysis of data and the disaggregation of that. In the absence of that, we do have some data but it is really around saying what it is used for. We do not have data in regard to criminal cases and investigations in this area, which, as Dr. McDonagh said, is really key.

In regard to staffing, reflecting on my experience in this area, across all human rights and equality sections, we often look to training and monitoring as the first response, or at least training and awareness raising. What we found very strongly in this research study was that professionals in the sector said they can persuade people to take a certain amount of training but it is what happens after the training that matters. Are they held to account for their actions? Is what the training teaches them upheld in the culture of the institution, not only within a particular provider but right across the sector and those other oversight bodies and the landscape of oversight that is there? If that is missing, you can do all the training in the world that you like and it will not matter. As Ms Kennefick said, the monitoring is key because that is the ongoing building of a culture of accountability. I will hand back to Dr. McDonagh to answer the other piece.

Dr. Rosaleen McDonagh:

I will make one comment on that and then move on to Senator Harmon. When Dr. Michael approached me to do this work, as a disabled person, even though I am trained professionally as a researcher, we learned that out of the nine countries, I was the only openly identified disabled researcher. That is very telling not only in how we do research but in regard to how we interpret. Disabled people are very well trained up to do peer research. You do not need a PhD to ask the questions we are asking. As long as we have been involved in research, the data becomes almost secondary to the reality of our lives. We need to be involved in doing this work. What was Senator Harmon's question again?

Laura Harmon (Labour)
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I asked about the intersectionality piece as well. Could Dr. McDonagh expand on that in regard to what policy recommendations she would have to ensure everybody is protected?

Dr. Rosaleen McDonagh:

Number one, everybody is at risk. We need to learn risk monitoring. Then, in training of staff, we need anti-racist and anti-violence training. We need to look at cultural behaviour and we need to recognise that for individual disabled people living in institutions or group homes, certain things are needed. Bacon and spuds do not suit everyone for their dinner. There is a whole wide range that needs to be built into training and then in the legislative area, we need knowledge - particularly knowledge, to be good enough - not only in the area of disability but also non-verbal, autism and anti-racism. When they get some of that training, they do not get it in an intersectional context. They see Travellers as able-bodied men. They see black people as women and nothing else, not the whole intersectional package.

Ms Nevena Peneva:

Very briefly, on the point of data, when we speak of data, everybody has a responsibility to be producing data. Everyone is a duty-bearer in ensuring that the rights of persons with disabilities within institutions and beyond are protected. Data, in this sense, serves to ensure this accountability, as Dr. Michael already said a few times.

I recall that when we speak of data, we often focus only on the outcome, result and complaints data. However, data should be tracked throughout the whole spectrum of it. What are the legal protections missing? When they are put in place, what are the processes and the measures set up to be implementing these legal protections in practice? This is also a piece of more qualitative data that is very important to look at in all of this.

Another piece connected to the intersectionality is that data should be disaggregated. It should be disaggregated by the type of setting, by the type of violence and by who is a victim. In this way, you would see where more tailored and targeted measures are needed, and where the gaps are. It is only in this way that you would have informed policies.

The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is the first international human rights treaty that has a particular article that sets an obligation on states to collect data on the situation of persons with disabilities. What is important about the obligation is that it is not only to collect data on how disability-specific policies are being implemented and having an effect, but to collect data on the effect all general policies are having on persons with disabilities. That is very important. The data is on every action we are doing. It would apply to everyone.

We mentioned that in Ireland there is some data. Of course there are gaps but in many other countries there is nothing, and when I say nothing, I really mean nothing. There is no data on complaints and no idea of what is happening. When there are complaints, for example, to independent monitoring bodies or ombudsman institutions, there is no disaggregation. There are complaints by persons with disabilities but we have no idea what they concern and whether they are from an institutional setting or not. These levels of disaggregation are extremely important so the data is indeed used to ensure accountability.

Keira Keogh (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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I have been listening all morning to the fabulous statements and conversation so far. Thinking about this in a broader context, the witnesses referred to seeing abuse in Ireland but also similar abuse across Europe. At a meeting of the AI committee last week, we talked about the use of autonomous weapons and keeping a human in the loop. I posed an out-there question, noting that even with humans in the loop, we sometimes commit genocide and do all kinds of terrible things. We can look at psychological testing in that regard. We have problems in larger institutions and now we have problems in the smaller institutions, and probably one to one as well. Did the witnesses see any reasoning behind it? Obviously, people who go into working with people with disabilities do so for the right reasons, yet some end up committing abuse. Did the witnesses see any common themes? Training was mentioned, and it helps but without oversight, the abuse is still happening. Were there any themes around why the abuse was happening? Was it mainly abuse by staff of service users or was there some abuse of service users by other service users? I will ask my three questions and then our witnesses can come in.

Mr. Herrick mentioned people not complaining for fear of repercussions. I ask him to outline what those repercussions look like.

If we get the safeguarding legislation in place, how quickly will change come about on the ground? For a person in a small setting who is carrying out abuse, how quickly will that legislation make a difference?

Dr. Lucy Michael:

I will take those questions, if I may. I will give two examples from the research study to try to keep this grounded in what people in the sector, rather than us, are saying. We spoke to a professional services team for safeguarding in one service provider. Those professionals had worked for decades across the sector, in many different providers. They spoke to us about the importance of that culture of accountability. It is built day by day in team interactions with each other, as well as in the interactions with residents. We have mentioned agency staff a few times. It is not to put the blame on agency staff or say they are more culpable as regards abuse than anybody else, but to say that the constant turnover within staff teams undermines the ability to build a strong culture of protection. What these professionals said to us was that the framework in which their work sits, not only the policy framework which, as Ms Kennefick said earlier, was last updated in 2014 but also this legislative framework, is so important to them being able to build that culture of accountability and to work effectively with HIQA and the other monitoring and inspection bodies.

The "why" of abuse is really around these dynamics.

The second example I will give is of who was a manager in a very large congregation setting and moved into a smaller setting. They spoke to us in the interview about the sense they had that nothing immediately changed. That was a gradual realisation for them, following interactions with other professionals in the sector through a period of time after that change. That realisation opened their eyes to the kinds of abuse which had been perpetrated by themselves and other colleagues over years.

To reference the quote I mentioned in my opening statement, some people just do not see behaviour as abuse. This person very courageously spoke about their own experience of not only perpetrating abuse, but acknowledging and witnessing abuse by their colleagues. For us, that was so stark an example of somebody in the sector who was able to say that abuse is normalised. The dynamics have normalised it. If we put those two examples side by side, one being a residential manager who I do not want to say has seen the light but who has come to be an advocate for professionalism, safeguarding and the rights and dignity of residents, and the second being these professionals who are trying to implement, and have implemented in the institution they now work in, a very high level of standards according to the HIQA reports, we start to see that.

I said earlier that when we started the interviews most people assumed we were talking about resident to resident abuse and not staff to staff abuse. The data is a challenge here because we have had many reports where the abuse or neglect that has been the subject of accountability discussions has been staff witnessing and allowing residential interactions to happen. There have been very little about abuse or neglect actually perpetrated by staff in those institutions. We have a real blind spot in this area.

The Deputy asked how quickly this will change on the ground if we get legislation. I am lucky to have worked across a range of equality and human rights areas in my career. There are always bright spots where one can see people working in a sector ready for legislative change and calling for legislative change, and this is one of them. I firmly believe that if we put the necessary safeguards in place, the professionalism of the people in the sector will carry it forward. It is not often I get to say that in any area that we do research in, but it is certainly true in this one. This committee called the necessity for legislative action urgent in 2017, and it is now nine years later.

Mr. Liam Herrick:

On the first question on why the abuse takes place, at the heart of human rights and human rights protections is the principle that the most vulnerable place a person can be is behind a closed door. That is why we have prison visiting committees and inspections of prisons. It is why we have, for example, audio and visual recording of Garda interviews and monitoring of Garda cells. If the committee wants to see how this can be addressed, we should look at the progress that has taken place in the mental health sector where we have strong inspection and a very robust inspection system. We have structured institutions in such a way that there is very careful monitoring of the use of force, for example. We are seeing incredible progress there. That is why the abuse can happen. As has been said, this is a blind spot where we are not putting the same type of protections in place with regard to this group of vulnerable people as we are for those other areas.

In terms of repercussions, we have heard from a number of people. It is hard to imagine a power dynamic that is more unbalanced in our society than somebody who has absolute control over another person's access to food and basic services and necessities, who can separate him or her from his or her family by preventing access, can expose the person to significant risk from other people in the setting or can even use force against him or her. There is a very dramatic power imbalance, and that can be exercised in very subtle ways. That is why we need a very heavily regulated environment.

I echo what Dr. Michael said about the prospect for change. I agree with her characterisation that this is a sector that is waiting for legislation in order to implement it.

I acknowledge in particular the leadership that has already been shown by HIQA and many other bodies in the initiatives they are taking to develop standards and guidelines. However, they cannot achieve what they need to achieve without a legislative basis. There is incredible co-operation in the sector among the oversight bodies but they cannot achieve what they need to achieve unless the Oireachtas passes crucial legislation.

Ms Susan Kennefick:

I thank Deputy Keogh for her question and I will make a couple of points to bolster what Mr. Herrick and Dr. Michael have said. It was very interesting that Mr. Herrick picked up on the issue of a blind spot. This really surprised us when we did the research. He gave the examples of the oversight that can be in place for people in settings such as prisons and mental health settings. There is little to nothing of comparison for people in institutional care settings. Even though much of the violence perpetrated was criminal activity, and even aggravated criminal activity because the victim has a disability, it was not seen as such. It was seen as a social care issue and for social care settings to figure it out. When we asked in the research how people could complain, we were very often told that like everyone else they could ring the police, which shows absolutely no understanding of these settings or the lack of access that people would have to a phone or the Internet. This blind spot also leads to the fragmentation Deputy Quaide mentioned earlier.

When it comes to Deputy Keogh's question on why it happens, I will focus on the staff. In every member state we looked at, staffing issues, strained staff, underresourcing and underqualified staff were brought up as key elements of why violence happens. As Dr. Michael said, this is not to blame staff. We saw in many countries that staff often have to carry out a balance of risk. They have responsibility for 20 people in an institution so they deprive one person of their liberty by locking them in a room so they can care for others. This is a daily issue that a staff member has to deal with.

I mentioned in the opening statement that we have been rolling out this report quite a lot. One such presentation was made to the EASPD, which is the European Association of Service Providers for Persons with Disability. It welcomed the work and the interaction with us because it understood the blame is not on the staff, and that is not what we are trying to do. When monitoring visits happen, and there might be one monitoring visit per year and it totally varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, very often a report is written and there is very little opportunity for any kind of follow-up. Those visiting do not come back with practical guidance on how to close the gaps or with a roadmap for how to improve the service provision; they move on to the next institution they need to monitor. Very often the staff and the managers in the institutions hear of the problems and are then left to find the solutions themselves. We see this has not worked.

I will make another point because Deputy Keogh reminded me of it. When we were choosing countries to look at in the fieldwork we were quite limited because of resources. We really wanted a good geographical scope. Ireland was a choice for us because there has been progress in deinstitutionalisation and it is more advanced here than in many member states. What we have seen is that, as Mr. Herrick said, even when moving people to settings of fewer than ten people, many of the problems remain because the culture has not shifted. The culture moves from a large institution to a small setting. Some of the examples of violence we saw were maybe a little bit more nuanced or a little different because of the smaller setting. They were things such as deprivation of liberty and financial abuse. It was an interesting sample for us to look at.

Gillian Toole (Meath East, Independent)
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I thank the secretariat and our guests today for all of the information they have given to us verbally and in hard copy. A lot of the questions I had intended to ask have been answered or been covered in the statements. In equal measure, this session is angering, shameful and upsetting. We have a very clear purpose based on the pathways. The witnesses have given us very clear pathways and there is common ground between them and the FRA on the next steps. I will dig into a number of areas. My first question has a research perspective common to Dr. McDonagh, Dr. Michael, Ms Kennefick and Ms Peneva. If we do not have best practice in the EU, is there anywhere beyond the EU we can look to where we may get expanded guidance? This is not to take away for one minute from the excellent pathway the witnesses are laying before us.

My next question I have picked up from Dr. McDonagh's statement and I thank her for it. She makes the suggestion that perhaps the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission could take a more active role in receiving complaints and providing oversight. Dr. McDonagh, Mr. Herrick and Dr. Michael might like to develop this point in terms of resourcing.

I firmly believe that in the EU and Irish perspectives there has been an intense focus on the economy. This is totally understandable because providing services and paying people working in services depend on fiscal prudence. We are very quickly coming to the point where we have to recognise we are human beings first and human doings second. Our ethics and our morals should underpin what we prioritise and, more importantly, who we prioritise. I feel we are at a turning point. How do we translate that? I thank the secretariat for one of the questions which they have phrased better than I could have. It is on how organisational culture and staff practices influence the likelihood of abuse occurring or being addressed. Following this, how does the organisational and staff cultural element change, even in preparation for legislation to be accelerated? Do the Law Reform Commission's safeguarding proposals need to be tweaked or updated given the two-year gap since the work was carried out?

Dr. Rosaleen McDonagh:

I will begin and Dr. Michael and Mr. Herrick will take over. On the point regarding culture, every time I have been part of a discussion or conversation, the dialogue or debate ends up going towards staff and resources, a lack of training and a plethora of context. However, violence is violence. There is no rationale or excuse for it. We all need to broaden our arguments. There is a real danger that the lens and voices of disabled people get drowned out of the conversation because it becomes about resources, money and environment.

Violence is violence. We do not excuse men behaving badly, nor should we excuse service providers or individuals in those services. I am not blaming all staff but I am here to say I know, I live it and I witness it. The more time in the debate given over to rationalising why violence happens to people like me, the more we lose the central nugget of the argument. It is a criminal offence - end of.

Ms Nevena Peneva:

On the question of where we can look for more guidance or good practices, the mandate of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights is limited to the EU states. This is where we conducted the research, along with three candidate countries which are members of our management board. In these 30 countries we identified a lot of good practices. We did over 150 interviews with key stakeholders and people who either have a duty to prevent violence or are persons with disabilities themselves and are speaking from their experiences and from what they see. The report outlines a lot of very good and concrete things. The measures and the steps clearly outline what the enablers and drivers are and what key measures need to be taken in relation to protection from violence, prevention of violence and more adequate and effective responses. The research also provides some good practices. It is not just speaking about the structural gaps. It also speaks about providing some guidance on how those could be closed.

Dr. Lucy Michael:

Deputy Toole asked what kind of culture was necessary. I have used the term "culture of accountability". I will take a moment to explain what was meant by stakeholders using that term. The idea is that we were not just talking about a workplace culture that would be a nice-to-have. Equality or inclusion is often talked about in soft language. This was a culture of accountability in which every individual in the organisation, as well as the organisation overall, was held to account for the safety and dignity of every resident and staff member within it. It is the conception of a rights-based culture, which includes disabled people at its heart. The professionals experienced in this area who spoke to us said that the culture in their organisations has to be based in legal compliance and an expectation that monitoring and inspection would help to uphold internal standards, that those are improving all the time and that disabled people, residents and their families beyond are a core part of those conversations. They also said that the professional sector has an opportunity to develop itself and that there are facilitated conversations between service providers and those responsible for monitoring and oversight. That is really where the recommendation relating to IHREC comes in, which is around valuing IHREC's role in keeping human rights as part of the conversation.

Deputy Quaide and Mr. Herrick noted the fragmentation in oversight bodies. One of the things we were particularly struck by was how HIQA has done a lot of work on thinking about its role as a public body and its public sector equality and human rights duty. We saw that is driving best practice within the organisation and in particular, putting human rights and dignity at the heart of its work. What we envisioned is that IHREC would be able to take a role in facilitating conversations between oversight bodies. Certainly, that fits with IHREC's role regarding the UNCRPD. We did not have a firm recommendation as to what IHREC should do. We are well aware that IHREC already has many roles and is in a development stage regarding the UNCRPD, places of detention and so on. That is a conversation to carry on with IHREC. I do not want to put Mr. Herrick on the spot because it was our recommendation.

Mr. Liam Herrick:

As Dr. Michael has said, we are the independent monitoring mechanism for Ireland for the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. We are the primary body to monitor Ireland's implementation of that convention. This will be a big focus next year, when Ireland goes before the UN committee. That process is developing. The other area is this question of the inspection of places of detention Bill and the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture. It is intended that the Government will bring forward legislation in the coming months and that there will be a national preventative mechanism for all places of detention. We strongly believe that care settings where people are deprived of their liberty must be included in that. We will be the co-ordinating body, but in anticipation of that legislation, we are already convening the relevant agencies. We actually have a meeting tomorrow. The group includes HIQA, the Mental Health Commission, the Ombudsman, the Inspector of Prisons and the various policing oversight bodies. We are all set up and ready to go with that oversight function if the legislation is brought forward. We are confident and hopeful that the Minister for justice will bring forward the legislation before the summer. That would be a really big step forward.

Dr. Lucy Michael:

I apologise, I forgot to answer Deputy Toole's question about the Law Reform Commission, LRC, proposals. We mentioned them in our statement. As it stands, those are robust and have been well worked out. I am confident that bringing those forward, largely in the state that they are, is a good move. We have seen that the Government commitment to safeguarding legislation falls far short of the LRC proposals, particularly in that independent safeguarding board, which does not appear in the Government commitments to date. We do not have a heads of Bill on that general scheme yet but it certainly does not seem to be anticipated. The criminal law elements, including coercive control, financial abuse and other things as well as the expansion of domestic violence legislation are all in the Law Reform Commission drafts but not in the Government commitments to date. I would very much like to see those brought forward as well as the implementation overall of the safeguarding legislation.

Maria Byrne (Fine Gael)
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I will start by passing on my sympathies to Deputy Quinlivan on the passing of his sister, Eimear, whom I knew well. My thoughts are with him and his family. May she rest in peace.

I thank the witnesses for coming here this morning. It has been a very informative session. What legislative reform does Mr. Herrick think is necessary? What are some of the immediate changes he would envisage that would improve day-to-day living and provide protection, safety and dignity for persons with disabilities? It is a broad question.

Mr. Liam Herrick:

As I laid out, the passing of the Mental Health Act 2026 has been achieved and that is very positive. We identified a number of shortcomings and we had difference with the Minister on some points but there is no doubt it is a big step forward. We understand that the inspection of places of detention Bill should be published before the summer recess and then be passed as quickly as possible. Then there is protection of liberty safeguards Bill and the adult safeguarding Bill. Our understanding is that these two Bills combined are the Government's chosen approach to implementing what the Law Reform Commission recommended in 2024. The commission also made recommendations on the reform of the criminal law. It recommended four specific offences that needed to be created. At the moment, there is no Government commitment to advance those pieces but I assume it would be possible to introduce those by way of general criminal legislation. As the committee knows, there is ongoing reform of the criminal law, so there would be plenty of opportunities to bring those forward.

Indeed, there have been wider initiatives to introduce legislation on coercive control, which touches on some of this. The bottom line is that there is a very clear path, which the Government has committed to. It really is a question of legislation, and we were very disappointed to see this legislation not on the priority list for the current Dáil term. We hope this will be rectified shortly.

It is one of these areas where there is a consensus and everybody agrees what needs to be done.

Maria Byrne (Fine Gael)
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On the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, it was mentioned that Ireland was ahead of other European countries in some areas and behind them in other legislative areas. What systems are most effective in preventing abuse and what could Ireland learn from other countries?

Ms Susan Kennefick:

Within the report, we make quite a few recommendations that are based solely on the findings of the shortcomings in the legislation. Something that really stands out, which I mentioned earlier, is that in no country have the policy or standards frameworks been updated to reflect obligations on countries that have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Immediately, before any monitoring, accreditation or anything takes place, the standards that institutional care settings are being held to are outdated because they do not look at the CRPD obligations. As Ms Peneva mentioned, there are some good examples where persons with lived experience, persons with disabilities who are living in institutions or previously were in institutions have been integrated into monitoring visits. We have seen some good practice there where residents in institutional settings are perhaps more comfortable speaking to peer evaluators than other monitoring mechanisms. When it comes to responding to violence, we have seen very little in the way of good examples of providing safe, confidential mechanisms to complain. Some examples that stood out were the HSE's confidential counsellor. That was one example that stood out but really they were few and far between.

To go back to one point I forgot to mention earlier and which Mr. Herrick mentioned, which was about the fear of retaliation and why people do not report things or make complaints, it is because very often nothing changes. We have seen examples where people came forward with evidence that they had lodged a complaint, but due to many reasons, including staff shortages, not much changed. Often they were moved to a different ward or their most immediate caregiver was removed and someone else put in place, but often this did not lead to anything. The implementation of safe and confidential monitoring mechanisms and an awareness that something will change once a person complains would be extremely important.

Ms Nevena Peneva:

In terms of prevention, the scope of the research was really looking at monitoring as a prevention of violence. Of course there are many other actions, such as training, capacity-building and resources, that could be examined in more detail. As was said many times, there is not a country that we would say is an example, but there are elements of practices, regulations and measures put in place in some of the countries that could serve as examples or inspiration.

One thing that came up very strongly is that any monitoring is only as good as what the outcomes of the visit are going to bring. A lot of our interviewees spoke about the need to give investigative and sanctioning powers to the monitoring bodies, especially with regard to independent monitoring bodies, which are left out of just providing recommendations. While these are very useful and perceived as such by everyone we spoke to, they are lacking the teeth to lead to any change. For this we require some investment in monitoring bodies and to increase the resources and training. Let us not forget that in closed institutions, which most of them are de facto if not de jure, it is only the national preventative mechanisms, NPMs, that can enter. The NPMs in many countries are also extremely under-resourced, and for many of them, even if they are allowed interpret their mandate in line with the interpretation of the committee of the convention on protection against torture and they are covering social care settings, they are just struggling with the resources of doing this visit.

As was mentioned already, it is a really striking example when we compare it with criminal detention and prison systems, which have much more scrutiny. We were speaking to a German member of parliament who was in the European Parliament before she was in the Bavarian State Parliament. She said that as part of her work, she was visiting prisons, talking to people in detention every month and trying to understand their issues. She said we never hear of any such things anywhere, that it is really a blind spot, and that it is seen as a care setting and not as a place where abuse can happen.

Dr. Rosaleen McDonagh:

One of IHREC's tasks is that they have a programme called Know Your Rights. While it does not necessarily deal with abuse, nor can it in its present way of working, I would say knowing your rights is one model that could be developed and extended into this area. Also, and this is really hard to say, lots of disabled people do not believe or do not know they are being abused or their rights are being violated. It becomes normal, it becomes part of your everyday existence so you do not know any difference between being treated fairly and being treated badly. I would say - again I said it in my opening address - there needs to be a cultural shift around the status of disabled people, even within the framework of the UNCRPD. We still do not elevate disabled people to an equal status with their non-disabled peers.

Maria Byrne (Fine Gael)
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I have a final question around the deinstitutionalisation of residential settings. We have gone so far but possibly not far enough. I would welcome some comments from our witnesses' lived experience or from the different organisations dealing with it on the practical steps that need to be taken and how it can be moved on quickly.

Dr. Rosaleen McDonagh:

As Mr. Herrick and Dr. Michael will know, there is a myth that is spun that the smaller group home settings are not institutions and therefore there is no violence, or that somehow independent living - in theory - is being practised. Dr. Michael and I would fundamentally question that and suggest that the smaller setting is equally dangerous to the larger setting and that the phrase "independent living" or "service user-led services" is really only a cover-up for bad and poor access. I will hand over to Dr. Michael or Mr. Herrick.

Mr. Liam Herrick:

What Dr. McDonagh says is really important. We must remember the purpose behind deinstitutionalisation. It is not an end in itself to move somebody from a facility with 50 beds to one of five beds. The purpose is to move towards independent living and recognising the autonomy and dignity of each individual person.

The difficulty is that, if we move to profit-driven under-regulated smaller settings, risks might increase in some respects. What we really need to see is the institutionalisation seen in a wider context and that it is about a person-centred approach. That means a commitment to invest in personal assistance supports. There is a Government commitment to increase the number of hours that are funded for personal assistance but it needs to be properly structured in a flexible way around the individual person's needs.

There are good initiatives being taken. There was a pilot project of personalised budgets, but we have not seen a full review of that and we are not seeing that rolled out. It has been said by Dr. McDonagh that there is a huge amount of money going into the system but it is not necessarily tailored to the needs of the individuals in the system.

Where we see this going wrong is where deinstitutionalisation, for example, ends up with people going to small under-resourced nursing homes that are not subject to oversight or standards. That is not what deinstitutionalisation was meant to be about. It is not what it should be about.

Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Herrick. I ask Dr. Michael come in at the end, because, unfortunately, we are running out of time.

Martin Daly (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail)
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I apologise to the witnesses. I am on the health committee as well and trying to share both committees sometimes is difficult. I thank them for coming here today.

Following on their comments on the personal assistant role that would enable people living with disability to live full lives within their communities, we have deinstitutionalised but sometimes what has come after that is not desirable.

Mr. Liam Herrick:

I have already identified where deinstitutionalisation can go wrong, but where it could be going right is if the focus shifted to that support for individuals themselves making choices, in particular with regard to the choice and quality of housing options that are available for people with disability. Many people with disabilities would be able to live in their own homes or perhaps share homes with other people that they themselves choose to share with rather than being compelled into inappropriate sharing with inappropriate combinations of people. It requires a culture change and a mindset change but it certainly is possible.

One of the difficulties we are seeing with regard to personal assistance at the moment, and I suspect Deputies and Senators are engaging on this regularly with constituents and members of the public because we hear it quite a bit, is that personal assistance support, when it is provided, is not reflective of the person's needs in supporting them to access education, to get ready to go to work or to live independently and at times that are outside of office hours. The Government commitment for more investment is welcome but it is also about quality and structure as well as quantity.

Martin Daly (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail)
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It is important to distinguish between personal assistance and care. They are two different roles. We had witnesses here last week who clearly distinguished the difference, that personal assistance was about enabling the person living with disability to live a full life in every aspect and at their desire rather than a structure that was imposed upon them.

Mr. Liam Herrick:

We do not have a national picture of the scale but everybody we engage with on this would be firmly of the view that there is a significant proportion of people with disabilities in institutional settings that could be living in the community if they were properly supported. That is the real challenge we need to address here. It is those who are unnecessarily institutionalised. There is huge potential for making progress on that.

Martin Daly (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail)
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I take Mr. Herrick's comments on that. I brought a case to the Dáil recently, which I hope will be resolved, where a young person in their teens is inappropriately in a care setting. Mr. Herrick clearly outlined what can happen.

They were inappropriately in with someone who triggered them and it resulted in them causing themselves severe self-injury on repeated occasions. The parents, who were willing to provide that care and get that care in the community, and this often comes back to finances, outlined a plan that would cost the HSE exactly half of what it was paying this private provider - €750,000 down to €350,000 - and yet there was cultural resistance within the HSE to engage with those parents. Thankfully, that is moving forward now. I take Mr. Herrick's comment. They are real comments and they reflect reality.

There are examples in other jurisdictions where personal budgets, which go in tandem with personal assistance because that is what it comes back to, do not have to be any more expensive. They can, but it requires a change of mindset and flexibility to put the person living with the disability at the centre of the picture.

Dr. Lucy Michael:

On the impact of deinstitutionalisation, in the move from larger settings to smaller settings we saw a number of costs emerge for disabled people. One was the sheer number of people. The committee heard from witnesses in the previous meeting that it held how many young people under 65 who were disabled ended up in nursing homes. We heard, in particular, for example, of somebody who had been moved out of somewhere there their sign language was the normal language and was entirely isolated where no staff or fellow residents had sign language. We have also seen the impact of the continued distancing of people from their homes and families by the allocation policy and process which continues.

The other thing, which we heard from a resident of one of the smaller congregated settings, was the lack of development for disabled people, the way in which they were still moved from pillar to post. When the provider was in a holiday period, people were moved out of their own rooms into other spaces, so that the dignity of having one's own room was completely undermined by the practice. Also, that person was on their third iteration of an independent living course because it was the only educational opportunity available to them in practice to get out of that setting and to engage with other people, and while entirely pointless in terms of the learning process, it was crucial psychologically, they said, to keep mind and body together while in that setting. That is what we mean when we say the dynamics and the culture do not necessarily change when the size does.

Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Fianna Fail)
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I thank all the witnesses for attending today and providing the various briefing materials in advance, which assisted the committee in its deliberations. I will now adjourn the meeting until the public meeting at 9.30 a.m. on Wednesday, 13 May next.