/ The Connect People Network is a voluntary group of people with extra support needs and their supporters. We work to promote the rights of people with extra support needs:
- To have relationships
- To receive suitable sex education
- To understand their sexual rights
/ About the CPN’s Self-Advocacy Group
The self-advocacy group is a group of people with extra support needs and their supporters. We do lots of things:
- We discuss issues to do with relationships and sexuality
- We give talks to social work students in universities about our right to have relationships
- We hold discussion groups in disability services about relationships and sexuality
- We make submissions to the Government about the law
Michael Feely and Roisin Dermody provided support.
/ The CPN’s Submission to the Law Reform Commission
In 2012 the self-advocacy group made a submission to the Law Reform Commission.
Our submission can be downloaded from this website:
We were very clear we wanted the law to be ‘disability neutral’. We did not want different laws for people with and without disabilities.
/ The CPN’s work with The Centre for Disability Law and Policy (CDLP) and Senator Katherine Zappone
In 2014 the CDLP and Katherine Zappone invited some of our self-advocates to a discussion group about the law.
The CDLP and Katherine Zappone listened to our suggestions before writing their Bill.
The CDLP and Katherine Zappone made their Bill accessible to us. We were happy with the suggestions.
The CDLP and Katherine Zappone invited some of the CPN’s self-advocates to speak at the launch of the Bill.
/ The Irish Department of Justice and Equality on its Discussion Paper on Sexual Offenses
Later in 2014 the Department of Justice and Equality invited us to make a submission about its discussion paper
We were disappointed that the proposals were not ‘disability neutral’ and we were labelled ‘vulnerable’.
But we thought the points made were important. We had a discussion about these.
/ We discussed the suggestion that ‘the onus of proof’ should be different in cases involving ‘vulnerable’ people
We don’t like being called ‘vulnerable’. We don’t think there should be different laws for people with and without disabilities.
We think that the ‘onus of proof’ should never be on the person who is abused, regardless of whether they have a disability.
But we do realise being in court can be very difficult and stressful for people with extra support needs.
One member of our group had experience of the legal system:
It’s very adversarial, if that’s the word. People put words in your mouth.
It’s hard to know what’s going on lots of the time.
All self-advocates agreed that anyone should have a right to support in court if they needed it. Here are some of our comments about this:
I think people who need it should have access to someone that can speak on their behalf – an advocate.
There should be someone there who can explain what’s going on.
There should be technology in the court to help people talk.
/ We also discussed whether it should be a criminal offence for a professional to have a relationship with a ‘vulnerable’ person, even if there is full consent.
Everyone agreed that relationships between staff and service users were a very bad idea. Everyone thought they should be against the rules of services:
It’s not okay. You can’t do that.
Staff should get the sack for that.
If people want to have a relationship. They should leave the service.
One self-advocate thought relationships between staff and service users should be a criminal offence, even if there was consent.
But the rest of the self-advocatesdid not want different laws for people with and without disabilities. They thought that relationships between service users and staff were wrong and should be against the rules of disability services. But if there’s full consent, it shouldn’t be a criminal offence.
/ The CPN would like to thank the Department of Justice for their interest in our opinions.
We think it is very important to protect people from abuse. We also think it is important that abusers are prosecuted.
But we ask that the department try to do this without labelling us or making different laws for people with and with and without disabilities.
We suggest that the Department should re-examine CDLP and Katherine Zappone’s Bill, which the majority of our self-advocates support.
Thank you