Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) (Amendment) Bill 2026: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-26 ============================================================ Pauline Tully (SF), Cultural and Educational Panel The Minister of State is welcome. There is no doubt that we will have to pass this legislation today because if we do not, we leave the 1,000 or so people still in wardship in legal limbo. It is really unfortunate, however, that it has been left to the last minute. The Department, or the Minister of State's predecessor, must have foreseen that this issue would arise because only slightly more than a quarter of the people who were in wardship when the Act commenced three years ago have been discharged from wardship at this stage. There are obviously problems within the system. That, as I said, had to be foreseen. Had this been brought forward earlier, perhaps a year or even six months ago, we could have had a much wider debate about addressing some of the issues as to what was causing the backlog. If we do not address the issues causing the backlog, we will end up back here again in another year or 18 months, and we cannot have that. The issues causing the backlog seem to be that there are difficulties engaging legal representatives with the appropriate skills and knowledge to support discharge. That has been referred to by previous speakers. We need to look at that. We need to properly resource the Legal Aid Board, the national advocacy service and the Decision Support Service. They all have a part to play in this, and I do not think they have been adequately resourced to address the number of people who are still wards of court or in wardship. I am concerned that this is not compliant with the UNCRPD. The Minister of State is aware that "nothing about us without us" is a mantra for that convention. We have people in this country, many with intellectual disabilities, who are in wardship, but what I read from this Bill is that, while they will be notified of the discharge process, they will not be taken through it. It is not explained to them. That needs to be done. There needs to be information provided in an accessible format for them and their families to ensure they understand the process as much as possible, and that there is a fair way of addressing and assessing their capacity and the appropriate supports are put in place after that. I am concerned about how the Bill treats children in wardship. If a child in wardship is due to exit at the age of 18, is that going to be delayed for up to 18 months? If so, they could be 19 or 19 and a half before they get out of it. That age is a really important time of life for many young people. They are looking at how their lives are going to progress and whether they are going to engage in further education, employment or whatever it might be. That could be delayed because they do not have the right to make those decisions for themselves. There are a number of issues here. It is unfortunate that this matter was not addressed in a more timely fashion and that this amending Bill was not broadened to discuss many more of the issues that are involved here. Amendments have been ruled out of order. Those amendments were all vital to addressing these issues. The same happened when the Bill was before the Dáil and the disability matters committee. Amendments were not approved and discussed because they did not fit within the narrow confines of the Bill. It is important that we address the issues that are causing the backlog so that we can have a fair system to ensure that people are properly informed and have the information and support to exit the wardship and be able to make decisions for themselves. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-03-26/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:47+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-03-26