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

I fully understand why there is frustration out there on the delivery of services but also frustration on the legislative process. That is why myself and the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, have put a great deal of focus on the assisted decision-making capacity legislation in respect of such legislation which falls directly within the remit of our Department. We were accused then of rushing this legislation on one side when we brought it to the Dáil. We slowed things down because people raised issues and we have addressed some of those in respect of amendments here and in the Seanad also. We have also found that some of the issues in that legislation are linked to mental health, which the Deputy raised, and the legislative solutions fall in different Departments.

That is why we are referring back to the scoping exercise that the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, was talking about. Not all of the solutions to this lie in our Department. We have to work with colleagues in other Departments to make sure they are putting the same priority into amending legislation that will allow us to be fully UNCRPD-compliant and advance our signing up to the optional protocol.

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