Minister of State for Disability Kathleen Lynch said the delay in publishing the bill had been useful in permitting improvements to it.CAROL COULTER, Legal Affairs Editor
A law dealing with the legal rights of people with disabilities will be published in the first quarter of 2012, according to the Minister of State for Disability.Kathleen Lynch told a conference organised by Amnesty International and the NUI Galway Centre for Disability Law and Policy that the Mental Capacity Bill, much of which was contained in a 2006 Law Reform Commission Report, had been delayed by the priority given to financial legislation required in the EU-IMF programme.
However, the delay had been useful in permitting improvement to the bill and taking into account the Exchequer position with regard to the funding needs that would follow.
The enactment of this Bill would enable Ireland to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, she said, as the State would then be in a position to comply with the legal obligations imposed by the Treaty.
