Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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This Friday is International Day of Persons with Disabilities, the day to promote the rights and well-being of people with disabilities and celebrate their contributions to communities and society. I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this Topical Issue for debate. The optional protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, CRPD, allows individuals and groups to hold states to account for failures to uphold their rights. Ms Sinéad Gibney, chief commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission, IHREC, has stated:

'Optional Protocol' is a technical term that unfortunately does a disservice to its meaning and significance, and which masks the urgent need for action for people with disabilities and our society. The Protocol is about empowering people with disabilities.

Far from being optional, it is a crucial tool for the convention's implementation, which provides more local remedies and removes discriminatory laws and practices.

While the language is technical and it can seem divorced from everyday life, this is incredibly important to help strengthen the rights of people with disabilities.

Disability services, or the inadequacy of them, is an issue I am contacted about practically daily from people across Cork South-West and beyond. I know that other Deputies and the Minister of State have a similar experience. We hear accounts of children who cannot access vital therapies or the children disability network teams waiting lists, of families unable to get suitable housing and of older people forced into nursing homes due to a lack of home supports.

At the Joint Committee on Disability Matters, our current module is dealing directly with the lived experiences of people with disabilities and their carers. What one hears each week is more disgraceful and enraging than what one heard the previous week, as individuals and families tell us about having to fight for access to and then maintain basic services. I regret to say that I have come to the conclusion that we do not have a rights-based approach to disability; rather, we have a budget-based model. Services, supports, and opportunities are decided on the basis of Government budgets, not human rights. It is worth noting that we can afford to address these matters. In a rights-based system, when people are entitled to a service, they receive it, from SNAs to carers respite to accessible transport. What is happening in Ireland is so very far from this.

In dealing with all of this week after week, I keep coming back to the importance of the protocol in holding the State accountable for the deficiencies in services and for the barriers individuals face. The programme for Government includes ratifying the protocol, and the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth reiterates his commitment every time I ask him about the process. However, there is no sense of priority.

Disgracefully, it took Ireland more than ten years to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Individuals, communities and advocacy organisations are all deeply concerned that ratification of the optional protocol is also years away. People with disabilities cannot wait that long in order to be able to guarantee their rights. In June, the Chief Commissioner of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission wrote to the Minister of State and the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, to emphasise the need to adopt the optional protocol as a matter of urgency.

We have discussed this extensively at meetings of the Joint Committee on Disability Matters. It is clear that this is a political decision. We have heard from different experts, including the UN special rapporteur, who have clearly said that the optional protocol can be ratified immediately. I am sure the Minister of State will mention issues such the commencement of the Assisted Decision Making (Capacity) Act 2015 and the establishment of the decision support services, which are very welcome. However, these are the latest delays presented by Departments. Ratification can and should happen immediately. Will the Minister of State please push for this?

Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Deputy Cairns for raising the issue of the optional protocol and recognise that Friday is international day for persons with disabilities. It is also great to have the opportunity to discuss the matter this week and keep a focus on the agenda. I appreciate the Deputy's commitment and that of the entire House for the progression and ratification of the optional protocol.

Ratifying the optional protocol to the UN Convention on the Right of Persons with Disabilities is a matter of significant importance to me and the Minister. Ratification is a commitment in the programme for Government and the Minister and I have stated that we wish to see the protocol ratified as soon as possible. Work has begun to identify the steps that need to be put in place to enable early ratification of the protocol. However, the Government and I have always been mindful of the need to be able to meet and honour our obligations arising from international commitments. Ireland has a reputation as a good faith actor on the international stage and as a leader on human rights issues. It is a hard-won reputation based on a long-standing policy whereby we do not enter into binding international obligations without first being sure that we can meet and honour the commitments we take on.

The Minister and I are working to ensure that Ireland will be a position to honour the obligations in the optional protocol upon ratification. To this end, ratification of the optional protocol requires progress being made in key areas of legislation so that Ireland can move closer to full compliance with the UN Convention on the Right of Persons with Disabilities. Fully commencing the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015 is a priority for us in this regard. We are working intensively on an assisted decision-making capacity (amendment) Bill which will streamline processes and improve safeguards for everyone who will rely on the Act and the decision support services that it established. This is a fundamental change in how people with disability are supported in their decision making and is a key measure in progressing the realisation of Ireland's compliance with the UN Convention on the Right of Persons with Disabilities, especially Article 12.

It is important to put on the record of the Dáil that today I wrote to the Chair of the , Deputy Funchion, regarding the heads of a decision-making capacity (amendment) Bill. I have progressed it, and I now ask the committee to give it priority so that I can ensure a full commitment. I have always said that decision support services should be in place by June of next year.

In addition, a comprehensive review process is needed to ensure that Ireland's other systems and processes for personal persons with disabilities, particularly complaint and redress mechanisms, will meet the obligations in the optional protocol. The Office of the Attorney General will play an essential role in the review and officials in the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth will conduct work over the period ahead.

In terms of time, the programme for Government contains a firm commitment to ratify the optional protocol after the first UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities reporting cycle has concluded. Although Ireland has already submitted its initial state report under the convention, it is possible that the report may not be reviewed as quickly as originally anticipated. As a consequence, the completion of the reporting cycle may take longer than planned. However, the Minister and I are keen to ensure that Ireland's ratification of the optional protocol is not delayed for this reason and we will prepare for ratification once the review of domestic procedures, complaints and the redress mechanism has been completed and any action that may arise from that process has been undertaken.

In the immediate term, we know we need the commencement of the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015 and the full operation of decision support services. I would like to underline the commitment of the Government to implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats)
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I thank Minister of State. Of anyone in government, I do not doubt her commitment in this area. However, I am concerned at the conditionalities Departments keep putting up that supposedly block ratification. In 2015, it was the intention to ratify the convention and the optional protocol together. By 2018, however, it was just the convention. We then had to wait until after the first reporting cycle under the convention, which, at the current pace, is still years off. In response to pressure on that hurdle, the emphasis has now fallen on the commencement of the Assisted Decision Making (Capacity) Act 2015, which I welcome. It will come before the , and I will push for it to be prioritised. The review of the current legislation for decision support service gets an occasional mention.

The goal posts keep shifting, and all the time people with disabilities are denied access to housing, cannot get suitable transport for work or socialising and are disproportionately at risk of poverty and social exclusion. Exhausted parents have to fight for therapies from under-staffed children's disability network teams and carers are left without respite

In this week, with International Day of Persons with Disabilities imminent, what will the Government do? The Minister spoke about identifying the steps it needs to take. One one hand, we have independent experts, including the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission and Professor Gerard Quinn, the UN special rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities, stating that the protocol can be ratified immediately, without the need for all of the steps and compliance with the Assisted Decision Making (Capacity) Act 2015. There is no need for legislative or structural changes. Other countries have done that and they have come before the committee and explained that to us. On the other hand, we have Departments continually shifting their position, with barrier after barrier being put up, as well as a process which is at odds with the approach taken by countries that have done this successfully and that ratified the optional protocol years ago. The Government has a very clear choice. Surely, it would choose to follow the advice and more quickly protects the rights of people with disabilities.

Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Deputy. The Government is committed to full ratification of the optional protocol. There is a process I have not veered away from since I became Minister of State which relates to two matters I referred to in my reply. The first is the general scheme of the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) (Amendment) Bill 2021 that has gone to the Joint Committee on Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. I ask the joint committee to prioritise its consideration of that. I allocated funding in last year's and this year's budget for decision support services so that staff will be in place when the proposed legislation is passed, and decision support services will be operational. I am working with the disability stakeholder group and I am working on the national disability inclusion strategy. Interdepartmental groups meet on a quarterly basis.

Out of that, they meet every month where disability is a focus within their Department. I am asking them, parallel with what I am doing legislatively with the Members of the House, to ensure their Departments are doing the same. Before the end of this year, I will lay before the House the National Disability Authority, NDA, revision in respect of the Irish Sign Language Act, to see where it looked at every Department. What the NDA has done with regard to the Irish Sign Language Act is a really good barometer because it shows where disabilities within all Departments are open and that the Departments understand what it means about disability inclusion and participation and how the Departments can work to ensure that the mechanism is there.

I am not changing any goalposts. I have been very clear that if we cannot be before the UN convention because of the timing cycle, we have sent forward our papers. We have our decision support services in place. Those mechanisms are then in place for myself and the Minister, Deputy O'Gorman, to ensure that the optional protocol is ratified.