Gino Kenny presses minister on DPO engagement under UNCRPD

Minister, my question is around what your department is doing to inform all public bodies of their immediate obligations under the UNCRPD to prioritise disabled persons organisations in all consultations affecting disabled people. Thank you very much, Deputy, for this question. The UNCRPD requires States to actively involve people with disabilities and their representative organisations in the developing and monitoring of law and politics. policy. This includes organisations of people with disabilities, also known as disabled persons organisations or DPOs. These are organisations that are led and have a majority membership of people with a disability. While my department funds and supports a number of structures in relation to consultation obligations, engaging with people with disabilities and their representative organisations is a responsibility that all government departments and agencies share. The recent Participation Matters report that was published by the National Disability Authority provides important and timely guidance across government to ensure that disabled people are meaningfully engaged in public decision-making. Consultation and participation obligations are something I am particularly cognisant of as Minister, and I have sought to embed those core principles of the Convention in my own department's legislative programme. The Assisted Decision-Making Capacity Amendment Act of 2022 advances a number of key measures for further UNCRPD compliance, including providing for consultation between the director of the 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 has been conducted by the NDA with a view to identifying any improvements that need to be made to it. Furthermore, a number of DPOs are represented on the Disability Stakeholder Group, which is now in its sixth iteration, and 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 participate in the disability consultative committees of a range of government departments. Thanks for that. Thanks for that, Minister. That was quite comprehensive. I am sure you would agree that the UNCRPD was ratified about five years ago in this parliament, and it was a very, very good convention. It is a right to base convention, and at the heart of it, it does living with a disability at its heart. And I think it continued dialogue with that group of people in relation to groups that are advocating on their behalf. I think it is very important that they have a say and a kind of approach that is a rights-based approach, and service providers that do great work in relation to those that are advocating those with disability. I think there should be more intervention in relation to DPOs. I think at the moment there are only a number of organisations in the State that are DPO-led. I think that is our kilter in relation to the concept and the Convention's kind of aspiration. Thanks very much. I think that dialogue is particularly important, and even in my own constituency we have an excellent organisation. It is both service provider and DPO, Blanchestown Centre for Independent Living, and there is a network around the country. But I have always found them a great sounding board in terms of being able to meet with them, talk with people with disabilities, and have an engagement in terms of legislative policies I am working on in my own department. I think in terms of how we are doing as a country, in terms of DPOs, obviously Ireland has to report to the UN overseeing body for the UNCRPD, and we have submitted our first report. Actually now it is quite a long delay because of COVID in terms of countries being brought in to Geneva to be accountable to their particular report. I have actually gone through two of those reports for the Human Rights Convention and also the Convention of the Rights of the Child, and they were really useful in terms of getting feedback from the United Nations experts in how Ireland was responding to those two conventions. So I hope maybe before the end of my term that we will get that opportunity to be reviewed in terms of our compliance with the UNCRPD, including on DPOs. Thanks, Minister. I just want to get your thoughts in relation to the ratification of the optional protocol. When the UNCRPD was ratified a number of years ago, I think this was omitted, and I think it was a big mistake for many groups, including those that are advocating for those who are with disability, have said that this is a big mistake by the Government in relation to omitting that. I just wonder, in your tenure, do you have plans to ratify the optional protocol? Minister, to come to you. Thanks, Deputy. It is certainly a goal of myself and Minister Rabbit that we would see a ratification of the optional protocol. Ireland has a tradition in terms of a legal position that it does not sign up to conventions that it feels that domestic law is not ready to comply with yet. One of the big blockages to ratifying the optional protocol was that wardship was still in place. As you know, we have recently passed the Assisted Decision-Making Act, 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 are there any other legislative issues that need to be addressed prior to ratification. So I am looking forward, hopefully, to getting that report from the Attorney-General soon. But as I say, it is certainly the goal of myself and Minister Rabbit that we want to see the optional protocol ratified. But I cannot give you a clear, I suppose, timeline just today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I take it from this month. This is one song you shouldn't have to漏 in all the other pieces.