Registering power of attorney has become labyrinthine process

Sir, – I would like to echo John Gillen’s sentiment in his letter on registering power of attorney (“A long and winding process: our attempt to register enduring powers of attorney,” July 7th).

In 2025 my sister and I started the process of assisting our father in creating the enduring power of attorney. The more I read of the process the more perturbed I became. The assumption is that an elderly person, who may have limited online experience, is expected to navigate this labyrinthine process (I won’t even touch on the shockingly poor design of the “portal”). I was so concerned that I contacted my TD to call out the potential for abuse and failings in this system and was met with a helpless shrug.

Eventually, the documentation was gathered, signed and witnessed. Capacity assessed and certified, the documentation was uploaded and five months later issued with a rejection.

My question is: if a solicitor, who is familiar with powers of attorney, does not read this as requiring all documentation to have the same witnesses on the same day, as your correspondent John Gillen found out, how is a mere mortal supposed to interpret this differently? In addition, if the nature of the “Act” is to assume capacity why must multiple rounds of capacity assessment be gone through (at considerable cost)? Can anyone make this make sense? – Yours, etc,