Sir, – The letter on July 7th regarding an attempt to register an enduring power of attorney with the Decision Support Service (DSS) is almost an exact copy of my experience. What makes this remarkable is that my engagement with that organisation took place between September 2023 and April 2024, soon after it was established.
All the frustrations I experienced were almost identical: the tediousness of the bureaucratic process; the difficulty of getting a solicitor to participate in the process; the ludicrousness of having to get a doctor to verify my mental fitness to make decisions and then the compulsory requirement of having to pay a solicitor to explain it to me.
But the best was yet to come. I waited about six months for a response, although one was promised within weeks. I made regular inquiries regarding the progress of my application and was assured everything was in order. I was then advised that my documentation was incomplete and that I would have to restart the process.
The reason given was that at a particular stage in the process, the various signatories to the multiple documents involved should have been physically present at the same time. I had neglected to fulfil this requirement because I had not been aware of it. In any case, it would have been nigh on impossible in my circumstances to fulfil the physical-proximity requirement as one of the proposed attorneys was my son, who lives overseas.
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I declined the offer to restart the process and it appears that I was wise to do so as little appears to have changed in the years that the DSS has been in existence. – Yours, etc,
JOHN CASEY,
Bray,
Co Wicklow.
