Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) (Amendment) Bill 2026: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-26 ============================================================ Laura Harmon (LAB), Industrial and Commercial Panel I concur with Senator Tully's comments. "Nothing about us without us" is a phrase people hear from many organisations advocating for disabled persons in Ireland. The Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015 changed the outdated wardship laws for a modern Ireland. It was a stepping stone towards beginning to view disability from a social rather than a medical model, but I have serious concerns with regard to the current implementation of the Act and the proposed legislative changes we are discussing. There is a lot of confusion regarding the Act for people impacted by it, as well as families and services. In particular, the Act brought a lot of conflict between the parents of adults with disabilities and service providers, as well as other bodies like financial institutions. In relation to wardship, one of the reasons cited for not initiating the process to transition out of wardship is that people feel there is not adequate information. They feel that they have not been well communicated with. However, there is also evidence that some committees and wards chose not to engage with the information that was made available by various public bodies. I want to highlight a project completed by Family Carers Ireland on the implementation of the Act. The CarerAid project found a number of issues being faced by people navigating the Act. These include difficulties finding legal practitioners willing to take on cases related to the 2015 Act, and a real lack of clarity and consistency from service providers, in particular financial services, on how the Act is integrated into their policies and practices. The project found that people had difficulty navigating and using the Decision Support Service, DSS's online portal. It also found that there were delays in processing support arrangements with the DSS and that people had difficulties obtaining the legal statement of capacity that must be provided by a legal practitioner. I welcome the fact that a specific enduring power of attorney, EPA, website has been created. This will no doubt take a lot of pressure off people navigating the process of creating an EPA. However, we must highlight that their continues to exist a digital-first approach for a cohort of people who may prefer to use paper-based forms. It is reflective of the entire assisted decision-making system that the Government must now look at extending the deadline for all warship cases to be discharged. Wardship is an extremely outdated system, with wording based in an Ireland long forgotten. The Government, however, did not realise the true complexities involved in discharging people from wardship along with the confusion it brought to many households. The amendment of section 54 of the Act will allow for judges to extend a deadline for the discharge from wardship under "exceptional circumstances", but there is no clarification of what constitutes an exceptional circumstance. The Labour Party has looked at recommendations provided by the Centre for Disability Law and Policy in the University of Galway and agrees that a more just approach in these circumstances would be to only activate the extension in circumstances where it has not been possible to inform a ward of their rights in an appropriate and accessible manner, and for judges to ensure that the extension of the deadline is used only to support the ward and their committee to engage meaningfully and to participate fully in the discharge process. We are concerned about the lack of consultation with current wardships. In reading the amending Bill, I have only found sections that refer to notifying the ward. One in seven of the 250 people who have been discharged from warship so far have been deemed to have full capacity and are not in any decision-making arrangement under the current system. This implies that many of those who are locked in the wardship system are entirely capable of making their own decision. This underscores the importance of not just exiting the wardship system, but ensuring there is engagement with wards throughout the process. The Bill does not provide any engagement or consultation with the ward. I note that a number of bodies like the National Disability Authority and the National Advocacy Service for People with Disabilities have highlighted the lack of supports for wards trying to navigate the discharge process. There is an opportunity to address this advocacy deficit. The Labour Party recommends that, in cases where an extension is granted under exceptional circumstances, this period be used to fully support all wards and their committees in understanding the discharge process and to prepare them for life after the wardship. I fully welcome the central aim of the Act in removing the outdated wardship system, but the amending Bill only further reinforces a failing system. It does not address any of the central problems that exist with the wardship system and fails to acknowledge the rights of disabled people. If the Government truly wants to support disabled people, it must address the issues that are being outlined in this House. --- 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