Cormac Devlin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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196. To ask the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the measures and initiatives that he has taken to support disability rights and inclusion since 27 June 2020. [62772/22]

Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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As Minister of State with responsibility for Disability, I have been committed to advancing measures and initiatives to support disability rights and inclusion. Advancing disability rights, addressing the challenges and barriers faced by people with disabilities, and fostering inclusion and equality, is very important to me, as I know it is to my colleagues across Government.

Much of the progress that we have achieved since June 2020 has been advanced across Government through the National Disability Inclusion Strategy and through the Comprehensive Employment Strategy for People with Disabilities, both of which my Department coordinates. Under the auspices of these strategies, a huge range of actions have been committed to and progressed on issues at every level of government.

Also, the Programme for Government contains a number of cross-Government commitments to advance disability rights and inclusion across Ireland by continuously advancing our implementation of the UNCRPD, which the state ratified in 2018.

Since June 2020, we have established the Disability Participation and Consultation Network, to act as a standing consultation mechanism through which the voices of people with disabilities and their representative organisations can be included in the development of law and policy, as envisaged and required under the UNCRPD.

Significant advancements have also taken place in relation to the abolition of the outdated system of wardship in Ireland and the establishment of the Decision Support Service through the development of the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) (Amendment) Bill, which will be enacted and commenced in Q1 2023.

The Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) (Amendment) Bill will also amend the Disability Act 2005 to double the statutory target for the employment of people with disabilities in the public service from 3% to 6%.

I am also pleased to have established the Disability Participation and Awareness Fund in 2021, which was and continues to be aimed at raising awareness and supporting people with disabilities to participate inclusively in their communities.

I am committed to continuing my support for disability rights and inclusion going forward as we develop, together with the input of people with disabilities and their representative organisations, the successor strategy to the National Disability Inclusion Strategy in 2023.