Finian McGrath (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy O'Brien for asking this very important question about the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Considerable progress has been made to overcome the remaining legislative barriers to Ireland's ratification of the convention. The Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015, which was signed into law on 30 December 2015, is a comprehensive reform of the law on decision-making capacity. The Second Stage debate on the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Bill 2015 commenced in the Dáil on 5 October last. When it is enacted, it will reform section 5 of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1993 to facilitate the full participation in family life of people with intellectual disabilities and the full expression of their human rights. It is crucial that we achieve the necessary balance between safeguarding those rights and ensuring appropriate protection. Work is under way on drawing up the equality/disability (miscellaneous provisions) Bill and making progress with the miscellaneous legislative amendments that are necessary to proceed to ratification. It is intended that the Bill will address issues such as the convention's requirements with regard to reasonable accommodation and deprivation of liberty and will remove archaic references in existing legislation relating to mental health. The general scheme of the equality/disability (miscellaneous provisions) Bill is available on the website of the Department of Justice and Equality. The Bill is at the final stages of drafting. While I am not in a position to give an exact date for its publication, I expect to publish the Bill very shortly to facilitate the ratification of the convention by the end of 2016.

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