I am delighted to be here with colleagues from our Department, particularly following the transfer of function of responsibility for policy and legislation oversight relating to specialist disability services from the Department of Health at the start of March. It was a long and complex process, but we are delighted the transfer has happened. We are very keen to get a programme of work under way and build our division to undertake this.
I thank the Chairperson and members of the committee for inviting us to discuss the importance of a human-rights approach to disability matters. This committee recently issued a thoughtful report, Aligning Disability Services with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which our Department is examining. Since the transfer on 1 March, we have been working to build a more integrated human rights-based perspective across our roles in co-ordinating disability policy and practice across Departments as the focal point for the convention, and now with responsibility for oversight of services and supports to people with more complex disabilities. The location of disability policy and specialist community-based disability services in a single Department is a significant opportunity to strengthen strategic policy development and move us closer to achieving a more equal society. Our objective is to progressively transform disability services, and provide consistent levels of support and access to services for people with disabilities.
The centralisation of the equality, health and social care dimensions of support for people with disabilities within the Department will facilitate the further transition from a medical model of support towards a more holistic, human rights-based approach. We will also work to further embed the principle, enshrined in the Disability Act 2005, that mainstream public services are designed and delivered in a way that includes people with disabilities who can enjoy the same rights to services as other citizens, an approach that can be summarised in the phrase "mainstream first". We look forward to working with colleagues across Government to ensure this mainstream first approach becomes seamlessly embedded into all decisions made.
Two important pieces of work will drive this agenda. The first is the preparation of a successor whole-of-government strategy to the national disability inclusion strategy, which will be focused on advancing implementation of the convention. This will build on the work done to date, including on the comprehensive employment strategy. We will build on what we have heard to date in consultations with individuals with disabilities and their representatives organisations, on a further consultation that will be undertaken, and on what the evidence shows. It will be crucial that this national disability strategy is developed and delivered with strong whole-of-government support, where all public bodies play their part.
Second, securing agreement to significantly increased investment in disability services with the adoption of an action plan for disability services will continue the work to address deficits in the level of provision of services and supports set out in the disability capacity review, published in 2021, along with strategic refocusing on reform to deliver best impact. The committee's recent report highlighted the impact of service shortages on the lives of people with disabilities. We want to work to strengthen both the quantity and quality of supports people receive and to embed a human rights-based approach, which will give service users greater flexibility, choice and control and support them to live ordinary lives in ordinary places.
In all of this work we are informed by the provisions of the convention, and Ireland’s obligation as a signatory, to deliver on civil and political rights and to progressively implement economic, social and cultural rights. A milestone in this regard is the coming into force yesterday of assisted decision-making legislation that gives effect to the provisions of Article 12 of the convention. This repeals legislation from the 19th century and replaces it with a modern human rights-based framework, based on the presumption of capacity, and providing for tiered levels of support to enable people to exercise their capacity. It substitutes the principle of the individual’s will and preference for what was a paternalistic best interests paradigm. It replaces the all-or-nothing approach in the wards of court system with a graduated level of support to individuals who need support around particular decisions at a particular time.
In its letter of invitation, the committee emphasised the need to ensure appropriate economic and social supports are there to achieve equal access, participation and outcomes in all areas of service provision and employment, including independent needs assessment, services, advocacy, and redress. This is being advanced on a number of different fronts. These are: obligations in Part 3 of the Disability Act to include people with disabilities in the mainstream services of public bodies, and work to ensure those services are accessible to people with disabilities in terms of services, premises and information; cross–departmental actions on disability set out in the national disability inclusion strategy, which was co-ordinated by this Department, and plans are in train for a successor plan to advance delivery of the convention to promote fuller inclusion of people with disabilities in society and tackle some of the practical barriers to its achievement; the comprehensive employment strategy for people with disabilities which this Department coordinates; anti-discrimination legislation in the area of employment and access to services; and delivery of community-based disability services and supports, based on a human rights-based model of service and on individual need, not on diagnosis.
A key objective is to grow the resources to deliver disability support services in order that individuals and their families can rest assured that the supports they require will be there when they need them. It is acknowledged that there is a significant shortfall in the quantum of disability support services, as outlined in the Disability Capacity Review to 2032.
Work is well advanced in our Department on a disability action plan to work in a planned way to tackle these deficits, and to tackle the constraints such as the available workforce with the requisite skills to support individuals. We also want to focus on strategic changes that enable us deliver better for people with disabilities, for example a focus on early intervention, and examination of new models of residential care. There will also be important learning from the pilot on personalised budgets for people with disabilities.
On advocacy, which was mentioned in the letter of invitation, the Comhairle Act 2000 provides for mainstream advice and advocacy through the independent Citizens Information Board. Funding for this body is delivered through the Minister for Social Protection. Like all public bodies, the Citizens Information Board is required to deliver services to people with disabilities as part of its mainstream offering.
With regard to the new remit of this Department for disability services, access to services is based on a needs assessment rather than a diagnosis. Staff in the HSE and our funded disability service providers work with individuals and their families in a holistic way to ascertain their needs and the supports they require. Preparation of individual person-centred plans are mandated in the regulations for residential disability services, for example, and similar guidance underpins the delivery of adult day services through the interim standards for day services. Access to services is not dependent on a statutory assessment. For example, a great many children enter children’s disability services directly rather than via the statutory assessment of need process set up under Part 2 of the Disability Act. A non-statutory process is in train since 2015 to assess young school leavers for entry into specialist disability day services, and to determine the level of support they require.
Part 2 of the Disability Act 2005 provides for an independent system of statutory assessments of need. Such independent assessments are not a panacea. In a situation where the children’s disability network teams, CDNTs, are carrying a high number of vacancies in respect of sanctioned posts, the staff resources required to undertake the statutory assessment process are competing directly with the resources required to deliver therapies to children, and the legal obligation to deliver assessments can mean that assessments are prioritised in practice over delivery of interventions. There can be a trade-off between delivery of necessary supports and services and the operation of the independent assessment when resources are as finite as they are at present.
The roadmap for children’s disability services is being finalised by the HSE and will chart a way forward to maximise the resources we can mobilise to support early intervention for children. The committee's recent report mentions the importance of a national disability awareness-raising strategy. We are happy to say that such an awareness-raising campaign, with a focus on the equal human rights of people with disabilities, is currently being finalised and will be in place very shortly.
In conclusion, the integration of responsibility for disability equality policy, for driving the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UNCRPD, across government, and for specialist disability supports services, will provide a new impetus for the policies, investments and reforms needed to make equal inclusion and participation of people with disabilities in our society a reality. While we have some solid foundations, there is still a long way to go, and we look forward to engaging with the joint committee as we continue this work.