Sinn Féin TD for Co. Clare Violet-Anne Wynne has responded to the stark findings of Safeguarding Ireland’s survey released earlier this week.
The advocacy group published their findings on Monday which expose how Disabled People still struggle to access their full set of human rights.
Teachta Wynne said:
“Safeguarding Ireland’s survey has exposed how much work has to be done in relation to achieving equality for Disabled People.
“40% of respondents did not believe that people with disabilities have equal rights in Ireland, and my work on the Joint Oireachtas Disability Matters Committee supports this belief.
“We have heard from many people with direct lived experience of institutional abuse and disempowerment through the medicalised and charity models of ‘care’.
“Only 25% believe that people with an intellectual disability are adequately supported to make their own decisions, and just 33% believe that people with a physical disability are adequately supported to do so.
“According to a parliamentary question response I received from TUSLA this week, almost half a million euro has been spent on the archaic ward of court system since August 2019.
“This wardship system is an old, inhumane process of denying someone the capacity to make their own decisions and thereby stripping them of their rights.
“It is based on the Lunacy Regulation Ireland Act 1871 – it’s absurd that it would continue to be part and parcel of 21st century Irish criminal justice and social care system.
“The Assisted Decision Making Act 2015 seeks to modernise many of its provisions but in the meantime young people’s rights are being abused.
“More than 2,500 people who have been taken into wardship will remain in wards until the relevant provisions replacing the wardship system are commenced.
“This is simply not good enough. Disabled People should have full access to a full set of human rights and should not have to postpone their lives for the many years it takes to draft, sign, commence and implement legislation.
“Disabled People are over-represented in unemployment figures, they find it harder to access education and housing, and face discrimination and exclusion on a daily basis.
“Ireland was the last country in the EU to ratify the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) and there remains much to be done in our society for its protections to be implemented.
“The government at the time refused to ratify the Optional Protocol of the Convention which basically means Disabled People are without recourse and can’t hold the state to account for not meeting its obligations under the Convention.
“This is a cowardly approach to human rights and is telling of the governmental attitude toward Disabled People.”
