14 July 2014
Statement of Inclusion Ireland the national association for persons with intellectual disabilities -to the UN Human Rights Committee
111th Session, 7-25 July 2014
Examination of Ireland
14-15 July 2014
Inclusion Ireland is the national organisation for people with an intellectual disability. Our vision is of a society in which people with a disability live and participate in the community as persons with equal rights.
The issues I raise here today are those experienced by people with intellectual disability, parents and family members.
Persons with disabilities have the right to make their own decisions and to have such decisions legally respected. The right to legal capacity and is the key to the fulfilment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms. However, in Ireland thousands of people continue to be denied the right to legal capacity. They remain on on the margins of Irish society, their personhood denied.
We are concerned that the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Bill 2013 will be not be underpinned by the principle of legal capacity or compliant of article 12 of the CRPD. Furthermore, the new law, as it is currently drafted, will not change other laws dealingwith legal capacity, including jury service and sexual relationships. In addition, the Bill does not alter the law as it relates to persons detained under the Mental Act 2001. The UN has previously questioned the compatibility of Ireland’s Mental Act with international human rights standards. The legal capacity of persons with disabilities to give or withdraw consent for mental health services must be respected.
The second issue I would like to address relates to hate motivated crimes against persons with disabilities.Ireland’s crime classification system does not record hate motivation, whichmakes it difficult to gauge the level of hate crime against people with disabilities.We do know that recorded sexual offences against ‘mentally impaired persons’ occurred at the rate of one crime per fortnightin 2012. We also know that 10,000 incidents of aggression and violence were recoded in Irish hospitals and health care facilitates in 2011.
Finally, Inclusion Ireland is concerned that the laws governing sexual offenses do not adequately protect victims of crime with a disability. The Law Reform Commission is questionedthe compatibility of oursexual offenses legislationwith international human rights law.
Thank you