Sir, – It is with dismay that I learned that the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity Act) is to be delayed yet again, in spite of several Government commitments that it would commence this year.
This law was enacted in 2015 amid much fanfare and was rightly lauded as a crucial law which would have the effect of repealing 19th century, Victorian-era legislation called the Lunacy Act.
Under this Act, people with disabilities or brain injuries may be made wards of court, categorised as lunatics under law, incapable in the eyes of the law of making decisions for themselves. These decisions may be financial, health related or even where you live.
The law is 151 years-old, yet in the now seven years since the Act to replace this system was brought in, it has still not fully commenced.
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People with disabilities, in particular those who have been affected by this law, have waited impatiently for their human rights to be brought from the 19th to the 21st century.
Now they have been told to wait still longer.
– Yours, etc,
SARAH LENNON,
Shankill,
Dublin 18.