Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Believe me, the eye is very much on the ball. On the Stormont House Agreement, negotiations are very much advanced in respect of concluding an international agreement that will set up a commission of information retrieval, which is a new body to be established in both jurisdictions. I cannot give a date for publication except to say that those negotiations have gone very well and are very well advanced.

The Deputy also mentioned the reformed and consolidated domestic violence Bill. The heads of this were cleared in July and the estimated time for publication is early next year so the Deputy is not in a position to say it will not be published before the House is dissolved, unless she knows something I do not know.

On the Deputy's third point in respect of disability, I met representatives of disabled groups recently. We have taken a different line in Ireland from that taken by other countries which have signed the convention but not introduced the legislation. There are a number of pieces of quite complex legislation which we have now put into a roadmap so that we know exactly what we have to do to legislate before we actually sign. This includes the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Bill, which was published in 2013 and which is currently ready for Report Stage in the Dáil. It will address the existing legislation governing capacity and will provide a series of options to support people with decision-making capacity difficulties to make decisions and exercise their basic rights in line with the principles of the convention. This morning there was another presentation where the categorisation of persons of unsound mind, a category which has existed from way back along the line and who are not in a position to stand for any electoral office, will be dealt with under an amendment to this Bill.

There is mental health legislation and there are other Department of Health issues and a review of the Mental Health Act 2001 has been completed. The report of the expert group was published on 5 March last. The bulk of the 165 recommendations relate to changes in mental health legislation and the Department is working on a general scheme to reflect those changes in revised legislation. The Minister for Health will separately deal with reform of the legislation regarding the use of electroconvulsive therapy, ECT. The Mental Health (Amendment) Bill 2008, which passed all stages in the Seanad in 2011, is currently on Second Stage in the Dáil. When enacted, it will make immediate changes to the Mental Health Act 2001 to ensure that ECT cannot be administered to an involuntary patient who has capacity and who refuses such treatment.

There are two main elements to the criminal law legislation. Section 5 of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1993 needs to be replaced and work is well under way on that. On 16 December last the Government approved the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill 2014 for publication, which includes wide-ranging provisions to protect and enhance the protection of children and vulnerable persons from sexual abuse and exploitation. Amendments to repeal section 5 of the Act are being prepared.

Second, an amendment to section 4 of the Criminal Law (Insanity) Act 2006 will be necessary to address the issue of discriminatory treatment of persons whose decision-making capacity is in question. That was the subject of a judgment of the High Court in G v. District Judge Murphy. In that case, the court found that the failure to provide a mechanism whereby a person charged with an indictable offence whose fitness to be tried is called into question but is later established can obtain the benefit of a guilty plea before the District Court violated the requirement of equality before the law under Article 41 of the Constitution.

The final category comprises all other necessary miscellaneous amendments, including those needed to update outmoded, unsuitable and sometimes archaic language and provisions. This category will also include necessary amendments to the disability and equality Acts.

That is the road map that we need to legislate for and then sign the UN convention. Other countries signed first and are now in difficulty in not having legislation to give effect to what the declaration means.

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