Catherine Ardagh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As I have said before, my heart goes out to the families of our troops in Lebanon who are very worried. I hope they will carry out their duties and make it home safely.

I stand today to discuss the assisted decision-making Act. The intention of this Act is for people to set up enduring powers of attorney or other plans for their lives when they have somewhat diminished or loss of capacity. Before the new system came in, 1,250 enduring powers of attorney were registered. With the new system, which is only one year old, only ten enduring powers of attorney have been activated. I do not know if anyone here has an enduring power of attorney and has used the new system, but it is really cumbersome. A PPS number, email address, public services card and the PPS numbers of the proposed attorneys are all required. A lot of information needs to be gathered. For somebody who might be vulnerable or may not be tech savvy, it is really difficult. I am calling for first, that libraries open up access for people to show them how to navigate their way around the new assisted decision-making service and, second, for a solicitors' access point like we have in Revenue under the tax advisor identity number, TAIN, unit.

At present, solicitors cannot log in as an individual because of GDPR issues. Many solicitors are not touching it and this can be seen in the numbers being activated. It is such important legislation that someone has enduring power of attorney in place when they lose capacity. They cannot move, nursing home bills cannot be paid and a person's life stops. It is very worrying for families. I would just like to see that examined without delay.

Another issue that colleagues previously in the Seanad have called for, and something on which I co-sponsored legislation, is a wills registry. I would like to see that moved forward. I believe it is before the Dáil.

More than €50 million worth of probate is sitting in the probate office. There are huge delays because they have very few staff. This is obviously an administrative issue but it is really important.