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

The amendment proposes to create a new subsection under section 8 of the 2015 Act. Section 8 provides the guiding principles which underpin the Act, specifically with regard to making an intervention in respect of a relevant person. The amendment seeks to have the guiding principles interpreted in line with the UN convention, in particular, Article 12 and General Comment 1 of the UNCRPD.

As I stated on Committee Stage, while I understand the intention of the amendment, it is vague in nature and lacks the necessary legal clarity for inclusion in primary legislation. Additionally, the inclusion of this provision is not necessary from a policy perspective.The language of the convention does not lend itself to inclusion in primary law and the text of the convention is primarily by way of statements that set standards for the signatories of the convention to meet. It does this by way of general principles that are designed to be interpreted by countries adopting national laws. General comment No. 1 is a good example of this, which itself is designed as a guide to the relevant sections of the convention. As stated previously, it would be highly unusual and legally problematic to grant such language the force of domestic law in the manner proposed. Aside from the technical difficulties with the amendment, since ratification of the convention by Ireland there is an overarching and existing obligation on the State to be compliant with the CRPD. This means that the obligation the amendment is intended to create already exists as a matter of law without the need for this proposed amendment.