Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 30 March 2023
7. Deputy Bríd Smith asked the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth the measures his Department is taking to inform all public bodies of their immediate obligations under the convention to prioritise disabled persons' organisations in all consultations affecting disabled people; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15766/23]
Amharc ar fhreagraMy question to the Minister is about what his Department is doing to inform all public bodies of their immediate obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, CRPD, to prioritise disabled people's organisations, DPOs, in all consultations affecting disabled people.
The UNCRPD requires states to actively involve people with disabilities and their representative organisations in the development and monitoring of law and policy. This includes organisations of people with disabilities, also known as disabled persons' organisations. These are organisations that are led by and have a majority membership of people with disabilities.
While my Department funds and supports a number of structures in relation to consultation obligations, engaging people with disabilities and their representative organisations is a responsibility that all Departments and agencies share. The recent Participation Matters report published by the National Disability Authority, NDA, provides important and timely guidance across government to ensure disabled people are meaningfully engaged in public decision-making.
Consultation and participation obligations are something that I, as Minister, am particularly cognisant of, and I have sought to embed those core principles of the convention in my Department's legislative programme. The Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) (Amendment) Act 2022 advances a number of key measures for further UNCRPD compliance, including providing for consultation between the director of the Decision Support Service, DSS, and persons with disabilities, including their representative organisations in the development of a code of practice.
In addition, the disability participation and consultation network, or DPCN, was established in late 2020 with funding from my Department to act as a standing consultation mechanism through which people with disabilities, including DPOs and the wider disability community, could be engaged in consultative processes across government. Many Departments have since engaged with the DPCN. A review of the DPCN model is being conducted by the NDA with a view to identifying any improvements that may need to be made to it.
Furthermore, a number of DPOs are represented on the disability stakeholder group, DSG, which is now in its sixth iteration. The DSG has been involved most recently in monitoring the implementation of the national disability inclusion strategy, and in that capacity members of the DSG participated in the disability consultative committees of a range of Departments.
I thank the Minister for his comprehensive response. The UNCRPD was ratified about five years ago in this Parliament, and I am sure the Minister agrees it is a very good convention. It is rights-based and it has living with a disability at the heart of it. We must continue the dialogue with that group of people and the groups advocating on their behalf. It is very important they have a say and that the approach is a rights-based one. Service providers and those who advocate for people with a disability do great work. There should be more intervention with DPOs. At the moment, only a limited number of organisations in the State are led by DPOs, which is out of kilter with the aspirations of the convention.
That dialogue is especially important. In my constituency we have an excellent organisation that is both a service provider and DPO, the Blanchardstown Centre for Independent Living. There is a network around the country. I have always found it to be a great sounding board in terms of being able to meet with it, talk to people with disabilities, and have engagement on legislation or policies I am working on in my Department.
Ireland has to report to the overseeing body for the UNCRPD on how we are doing as a country in terms of DPOs. We have submitted our first report. Because of Covid, there has been a long delay in countries being brought to Geneva to be accountable for their particular report. I have gone through two of those reports for the UN convention on human rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. They were really useful in terms of getting feedback from the United Nations experts on how Ireland is responding to those conventions. I hope before the end of my term we will get an opportunity to be reviewed on our compliance with the UNCRPD, including on DPOs.
I again thank the Minister for his comprehensive reply. I want to get his thoughts on the ratification of the optional protocol. When the UNCRPD was ratified some years ago, this was omitted, which I think was a big mistake. Many groups, including those advocating for people with a disability, have said its omission by the Government was a big mistake. Does the Minister have plans to ratify the optional protocol during his tenure?
It is certainly a goal of the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, and mine that we would see ratification of the optional protocol. Ireland has a legal position that it does not sign up to conventions where it feels its domestic law is not ready to comply with them yet. One of the big blockages to ratifying the optional protocol is that wardship was still in place. As Deputy Kenny knows, we recently passed the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) (Amendment) Act 2022, and we will be taking steps to remove wardship and establish the DSS in the very near future. The Attorney General is currently looking at whether there are any other legislative issues that need to be addressed prior to ratification. I look forward to getting that report from the Attorney General soon. It is the goal of the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, and my goal to see the optional protocol ratified but I cannot give the Deputy a clear timeline today.
