Roderic O'Gorman (Dublin West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I take on board the Deputy's passion in respect of this matter. I agree about the long delay between becoming a signatory and ratification. I see that in the context in the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act, which was passed in 2015 and which is still not operationalised. That is one reason why I am so committed to implementing the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act and removing wardship which is one of the key areas where we are so out of line with what we should be providing for persons with capacity impairments in terms of the UNCRPD. To be clear, however, we set out a timeline in the programme for Government for signing up to the optional protocol after our first review. Our first review has been pushed back by the UN. We are not saying that we still have to wait; we are open to doing it prior to the first review and getting assisted decision-making passed it a key part of that.

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