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

The UNCRPD requires states to actively involve people with disabilities and their representative organisations in the development and monitoring of law and policy. This includes organisations of people with disabilities, also known as disabled persons' organisations. These are organisations that are led by and have a majority membership of people with disabilities.

While my Department funds and supports a number of structures in relation to consultation obligations, engaging people with disabilities and their representative organisations is a responsibility that all Departments and agencies share. The recent Participation Matters report published by the National Disability Authority, NDA, provides important and timely guidance across government to ensure disabled people are meaningfully engaged in public decision-making.

Consultation and participation obligations are something that I, as Minister, am particularly cognisant of, and I have sought to embed those core principle of the convention in my Department's legislative programme. The Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) (Amendment) Act 2022 advances a number of key measures for further UNCRPD compliance, including providing for consultation between the director of the Decision Support Service, DSS, and persons with disabilities, including their representative organisations in the development of a code of practice.

In addition, the disability participation and consultation network, or DPCN, was established in late 2020 with funding from my Department to act as a standing consultation mechanism through which people with disabilities, including DPOs and the wider disability community, could be engaged in consultative processes across government. Many Departments have since engaged with the DPCN. A review of the DPCN model is being conducted by the NDA with a view to identifying any improvements that may need to be made to it.

Furthermore, a number of DPOs are represented on the disability stakeholder group, DSG, which is now in its sixth iteration. The DSG has been involved most recently in monitoring the implementation of the national disability inclusion strategy, and in that capacity members of the DSG participated in the disability consultative committees of a range of Departments.

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