Brendan Griffin
Question:66. Deputy Brendan Griffin asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Justice and Equality her views on a matter (details supplied); and if she will make a statement on it. [18430/17]
View answerWednesday, 12 April 2017
Questions (66)
Written answers
Having regard to the rules of the House in relation to Questions asked on a details supplied basis, my Department made contact with the Deputy and I understand that I have his agreement to disclose the subject matter in my reply to the extent necessary to ensure that my answer is useful and informative. The details supplied relate to ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Ireland signed the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2007 and since then, successive Governments have emphasised Ireland’s strong commitment to proceed to ratification as quickly as possible, taking into account the need to ensure all necessary legislative and administrative requirements under the Convention are met. This Government remains committed to ratification of the Convention.
It is essential that the State is in a position to meet the obligations that it assumes under the terms of an international agreement from the moment of its entry into force for Ireland. Before the State can ratify the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, enactment of new legislation and amendment of existing legislation is required to ensure obligations will be met upon entry into force for Ireland. Ratification of a Convention before we have amended domestic legislation that contradicts it makes no sense and does nothing to ensure compliance or to protect the people for whose benefit the Convention exists. The previous Government published a Roadmap in October 2015, which sets out the legislative measures needed to meet those requirements, along with declarations and reservations to be entered by Ireland on ratification. Considerable progress has already been made to overcome the remaining legislative barriers to Ireland's ratification of the Convention. The Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015 was signed into law on 30 December 2015 and is a comprehensive reform of the law on decision-making capacity. The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2017 has reformed Section 5 of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1993 to facilitate the full participation in family life of persons with intellectual disabilities and the full expression of their human rights. The Disability (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2016 was published immediately prior to Christmas and completed Second Stage in February 2017. The primary purpose of the Bill is to address the remaining legislative barriers to Ireland’s ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). Work is ongoing on all the other issues set out in the previous Government’s Roadmap for Ratification published in October 2015 and these will be progressed as Committee Stage amendments. The Bill will be progressed to enactment at an early date to facilitate ratification of the UN Convention as soon as possible.
I should make the point that the Convention creates no new rights, but rather requires that people with disabilities be treated on an equal basis with others. In particular, service standards and funding are subject to what the Convention describes as ‘progressive realisation’ and are subject to the budgetary decisions of the Government of the day. Issues around the allocation of resources are matters for each annual Budget and are for the individual Departments involved. The precise timing of ratification now depends on how long it will take for this Bill to progress through the enactment process and on issues in relation to commencement both of Deprivation of Liberty provisions, which will be included in the Bill at Committee Stage, and of the Assisted Decision Making (Capacity) Act 2015.
I can assure the Deputy that ratification of the UNCRPD remains an extremely high priority for me as Minister.