Sheila Terry (Fine Gael)

I move amendment No. 2:

In page 7, between lines 30 and 31, to insert the following:

"(5) Each application for a personal advocate shall be considered within 2 months of the date of application.".

This amendment follows quite neatly from the last amendment. I read with interest the Minister's response to Deputy Stanton on this matter in the Dáil. The Minister did not agree with the proposal that applications for personal advocates should "be considered within 2 months of the date of application". He pointed out that An Bord Pleanála is supposed to give a response within four months but does not do so, which often causes the deadline to be extended. The Minister has said the imposition of a deadline could work against an individual. I am concerned about what will happen if we do not provide for a clear timeframe, or if we do not have enough advocates. The Minister has said there initially will be four advocates and six support staff. We do not know how much demand there will be for the service. If demand is high, there will be problems if not enough advocates are in place. There can be many problems with staff, often for understandable reasons — it can take time to employ people, for example. If somebody with a disability needs a particular service or services, he or she should be able to get them promptly. Many people who need services at present have to wait for a long time to get those services.

The open-ended nature of this provision, as it stands, will not work in the best interests of people with disabilities. Such people are entitled to know when it is likely that advocates will be appointed to deal with their cases. The two-month timeframe for dealing with applications, which I am proposing in this amendment, is reasonable. If we do not include this provision, the relevant period of time could be easily extended to six months. If there is no timeframe within which directors have to respond, they might take six or 12 months to consider applications. That is not good enough. If the Minister thinks the two-month timeframe is too short, I will be prepared to consider as reasonable a suggestion that it be extended to three months, for example. If we leave it open-ended, we will hinder the delivery under this legislation of the services to which we all aspire.