Margaret Murphy O'Mahony (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. A report published in 2014 by the Irish Council for Civil Liberties found that people with disabilities who are victims of crime experience the same problems of under-reporting, lack of information provision, lack of private areas in courtrooms and delays in progressing complaints which apply in regard to all other victims in Ireland. However, very often the centrality of their outsider status is more pronounced.

This derives from a general failure to engage with the specific needs of people with disabilities beyond those addressed by the Disability Act 2005. One of the difficulties highlighted was the adversarial nature of our legal system, which as one of the authors pointed out can also be a discriminatory barrier given its emphasis on spoken testimony, lawyer-led questioning, observation of the demeanour of a witness, the curtailment of free-flowing witness narrative, confrontation and robust cross-examination. Clearly that can be particularly difficult for those, for example, who have a difficulty with a long-term memory recall and with communicating information, with cognitive overload and with questioning that invites acquiescence and compliance. Has the Department of Justice and Equality reviewed legislation with a view to making the system more accessible for people with disabilities?

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