Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the date on which a new Mental Capacity Bill will be published. [54481/12]

Terence Flanagan (Dublin North East, Fine Gael)
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To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality the position regarding the status of the Mental Capacity Bill; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [55140/12]

Alan Shatter (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 61 and 321 together.

The Programme for Government contains a commitment to introduce a Bill that is in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Bill is at an advanced stage of drafting and work is ongoing to properly align the provisions of the Bill with the principles contained in the UN Convention on supporting people with impaired capacity in making decisions and exercising their basic rights. I envisage that the title of the Bill, The Assisted Decision - Making (Capacity) Bill, will reflect this approach.

The Bill proposes replacement of the Wards of Court system with a modern statutory framework to support persons with impaired decision-making ability. The Wards of Court system is regarded as unsuited to modern conditions and incapable of coping with projected demographic growth and increased need for the management of the affairs of persons who lack capacity. The terminology and concepts used in the existing legislation of 1871 are inappropriate to the modern understanding of mental illness and legal capacity.

The main proposals under development in the Bill are to provide a legal framework to support persons with impaired decision-making capacity to better manage their personal welfare, property and financial affairs; change existing law on capacity from the current all or nothing status approach to a functional one, whereby decision-making capacity is assessed on an issue- and time-specific basis; provide that the Circuit Court will have jurisdiction to deal with determinations of capacity and to make orders consequent on such declarations, including the appointment of suitable persons authorised to take decisions on specified matters in support of the person lacking capacity; provide, in circumstances where it is not possible for a person to exercise their capacity even with support, that another person appointed by the Court may act as their representative; clarify the law for carers who take on responsibility for persons who lack capacity; establish an Office of Public Guardian, with supervisory powers to protect vulnerable persons; and subsume into the Bill the provisions in the Powers of Attorney Act 1996 on enduring powers in order to bring them into line with the general principles and safeguards in the Bill. Drafting of the Bill is being finalised with a view to publication early in the New Year.