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most notably, the lack of resources made available to the key bodies in addressing these issues in the Decision Support Service, Legal Aid Board and National Advocacy Service. An information campaign must be provided to help people understand what is happening with wardship, like I have highlighted with … initial rollout of the Act. This must be done between three bodies: the DSS, Legal Aid Board and National Advocacy Service. I also recommend running legal advice clinics for people who are impacted by the current wardship process so they can get general information and advice

which are significant. We need to use this time to look at what can be done. We need to properly resource the Legal Aid Board. I was at a justice committee meeting last week and we heard how under pressure the Legal Aid Board is at the moment

centre of the process. I understand that the Office of Wards of Court was represented, along with DSS and the Legal Aid Board. I also understand that the Minister is willing to put on more of those events if they are helpful. Many wards of courts are people … family members who will become our decision supporters. Under the old system, once a person became a ward, they lost all of their legal capacity whereas now they will retain autonomy and continue to participate in decisions about their own life. The new system is designed to support

meet the target. We are therefore entitled to ask whether sufficient planning was undertaken at commencement and whether the DSS, the Legal Aid Board, the National Advocacy Service for People with Disabilities and the Courts Service were adequately resourced to meet the volume anticipated. Were sufficient court medical … interests of justice to do so", subject to an overall long-stop date of 25 October 2027. These are serious legal standards but they are quite broad and experts at the centre of disability law and policy in Galway have expressed concern that without clear parameters, the discretion

discharge process, which is also a concern for me. The public bodies tasked with the implementation of the Act, such as the Legal Aid Board, the National Advocacy Service and the Decision Support Service remain both understaffed and under-resourced. It was not just Oireachtas Members who were … that these changes are being made without adequate consideration of the wishes of those most impacted by them. The Bill seeks to provide legal certainty in wardship cases by enabling wardships to be extended. It is concerning that there is a specification that only some wardships will

operation of the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act, for example the Office of the Wards of Court, the Decision Support Service, the Legal Aid Board, the NDA, the National Advocacy Service and, most importantly, wards, their families and their committees. The reason I am saying this is that … capacity. We now have a total of four judges working on this. It is also important to say that everybody now has a legal aid certificate in place. I know Deputy Gogarty in particular had concerns that resources might come after the fact, but since December, there

failure to appropriately resource the public bodies most involved in the implementation of the Act, such as the Decision Support Service, Legal Aid Board and National Advocacy Service in order to achieve that goal. I am calling on the Minister of State to commit to providing further resources

this time to look at what can be done. The centre raised the failure to resource the public bodies, the Legal Aid Board, the National Advocacy Service and the Decision Support Service. That needs to be looked at. The fifth concern related to some of the wider issues