Ireland has once again told a high-profile United Nations committee that it will be maintaining a “reservation” under a human rights convention that recognises the rights of disabled people to enjoy recognition under the law.
In its response to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), the Government said it wants to continue to allow “substituted decision-making” for disabled people in cases where it is “necessary” and in line with the law.
Ireland signed the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) in 2007 and finally ratified it in 2018. Under Article 12 of the UNCRPD, countries that sign up to the convention commit to recognising that people with disabilities “have the right to recognition everywhere as persons before the law”.
According to the UN, this means disabled people should be supported to make their own decisions under the law. The UN believes “substituted decision-making”, including when a guardian makes a legal decision on another person’s behalf, must be banned under this same convention.
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In 2021, the State sent its first report to the UN committee to explain the steps it was taking to “protect and enhance” the rights of people with disabilities. In it, the government argued that it believed Article 12 “permits supported and substituted decision-making arrangements that provide for decisions to be made on behalf of a person, where such arrangements are necessary, in accordance with the law, and subject to appropriate and effective safeguards”.
The State said that if Article 12 meant “the elimination of all substitute decision-making arrangements, Ireland reserves the right to permit such arrangements in appropriate circumstances and subject to appropriate and effective safeguards”.
In its first report on Ireland’s performance in 2025, the UN committee included a concern about Ireland’s “reservation” on Article 12 in a list of issues that it shared with the Government. It asked the Government to remove its reservation and commit to ending supported and substituted decision-making.
The Department of Children, Disability and Equality this week submitted its written reply to the UN committee. In it, it said “currently there are no proposals to withdraw these reservations and declarations to UNCRPD and the rationale remains unchanged”.
Under a 2015 Irish law that was designed to reform legal decision-making for disabled people, a decision-making representative can be appointed to take specific decisions on a person’s behalf in limited circumstances. This is designed for cases where a person is deemed to lack the capacity to make decisions on their own, even with support.
The Irish Government has argued that if it were to commit to the UNCRPD, this could create “difficulties” in operating its own laws.
A number of disability rights groups have previously criticised the Government’s position and asked it to withdraw its reservation to Article 12. In its submission to the UNCRPD, the autism support charity AsIAm said Ireland’s assisted decision-making laws were “not fully compliant with Article 12 of the CRPD which requires replacing all forms of substituted decision-making with supported decision-making”.
“The right to equal recognition before the law and to participate in legal decisions about one’s own life is a foundational principle of the CRPD. Therefore, we believe that Ireland’s reservation and declaration on Article 12 are contrary to the object and purpose of the Convention, and we call for their immediate withdrawal to align domestic law and policy with the full spirit and intent of the CRPD,” it said.
