UN CRPD Committee Publishes its List of Issues
Just before Christmas, the UN CRPD Committee published its List of Issues for Ireland.
A “List of Issues” report for the UNCRPD is a set of questions and concerns that the UN asks a government to answer about how it is meeting its obligations under the UNCRPD.
It guides the government’s repsonse and shapes the UN’s review of Ireland under the UNCRPD in a few years time.
Ahead of this report, we wrote a report for the CRPD Committee and met with them to discuss areas of concern for us.
We focused on three areas:
Gender based violence
Parenting as a disabled person
Poverty and social exclusion
We also contributed to the DPO Network’s report.
We were delighted to see that a lot of the points that we raised in our report were reflected in the CRPD Committee’s report. Here is a summary of the issues that we raised and the questions that the CRPD Committee has put to the Irish Government:
Gender-Based Violence (GBV)
Disabled women are at heightened risk of experiencing GBV and face compounded barriers in accessing safety and support (Articles 6 and 16). Many GBV services remain physically inaccessible, under-resourced, and lack adequate disability-specific training due to the State not providing the necessary resources to ensure services are equipped to meet the needs of disabled survivors. The inability to escape abusive situations is compounded by a lack of accessible and appropriate housing (Article 19), insufficient income supports and limited pathways to employment that hinder financial independence (Articles 27 and 28), and the absence of flexible, portable personal assistance and care supports (Article 19). Without access to these essential enablers of autonomy, many disabled women are left trapped in unsafe and abusive environments.
What the Commitee Said:
Please provide information on:
Measures to support victims and witnesses with disabilities in domestic, sexual and gender-based violence cases, including an update on implementation of measures within the plan, ‘Supporting A Victim’s Journey: A Plan to Help Victims and Vulnerable Witnesses in Sexual Violence Cases’ (CRPD/C/IRL/1, para 177).
(Article 13)
Please provide information about:
(a) Measures to revise the Domestic Violence Act 2018 to ensure it covers the specific experiences of violence experienced by people with disabilities, in particular women and girls with disabilities;
b) Measures within the Third National Strategy on Domestic, Sexual and Gender-Based Violence 2022-2026 that target the specific forms of violence experienced by women and girls with disabilities, that address accessibility of victim support services and shelters, and measures to ensure close consultation and active involvement of women and girls with disabilities in the implementation and review of the Strategy;
(c) Measures to address the systemic factors enabling exploitation, violence and abuse of children and adults with disabilities in public and private institutional and community settings, including complaint, oversight and inter-agency coordination mechanisms, the provision of independent advocacy and legal representation, and steps to address gaps in the criminal justice system, inspection bodies and the care system;
(c) The status of the proposed adult safeguarding legislation and its alignment with the standards and principles of the Convention;
(d) Measures to address systemic failures, hold perpetrators to account and provide reparations for ‘historical’ and recent incidents of violence perpetrated against children and adults with disabilities, including in relation to Aras Attracta, the Grace case, the Brandon case and Mary’s case;
(e) Measures to detect, protect and support victims of trafficking with disabilities as well as measures to transpose the Amended EU Anti-Trafficking Directive 2024 into domestic law.
(Article 16)
Parenting Discrimination
Disabled mothers in Ireland often face systemic bias and a lack of rights-based support (Article 23). Instead of being supported in their parenting, they are frequently scrutinised or penalised because of their disability. Barriers such as limited access to appropriate healthcare (Article 25), accessible information (Article 9), in-home supports, and suitable housing (Article 19) regularly undermine disabled women’s ability to parent with dignity. Disabled mothers are routinely subjected to parental capacity assessments which evaluate a parent’s ability to care for their child, which are often grounded in the medical model of disability. These practices fail to consider the social and environmental factors necessary for effective parenting, placing disabled women at disproportionate risk of having their parenting rights denied or curtailed.
What the Commitee Said:
Please provide information about:
(a) How Parental Capacity Assessments ensure that disability is not viewed as a risk factor for parenthood and if disaggregated data on the outcomes of these assessments is collected to identify systemic bias;
(b) Supports and services available for parents with disabilities to assist in undertaking their parenting role;
(c) Supports and services for families of children with disabilities to prevent family breakdown and placement of children in institutions and to ensure a safe and secure family environment;
(d) Measures to provide sex and reproductive health, healthy relationship and consent education to children and adults with disabilities.
(Article 23)
Poverty and Social Exclusion
Disabled women in Ireland experience disproportionately high rates of poverty, which severely undermines their autonomy, access to opportunities, and full participation in society (Article 6, 28). They are less likely to be employed compared to both non-disabled women and disabled men (Article 27), and are more likely to be in unpaid caregiving roles. In fact, approximately 45% of family carers in Ireland are disabled themselves. This intersection of gender, disability, and unpaid care work reinforces cycles of poverty and exclusion, which the State has failed to adequately address through targeted employment, income, and social protection policies.
What the Commitee Said:
Please provide information about:
(a) whether policies, such as the National Strategy for Women and Girls and the Strategy 2025-2030 include specific actions and measurable outcomes for women and girls with disabilities;
(b) measures to ensure the effective participation of women and girls with disabilities in public and political life, including addressing the practices, prejudice and gender stereotypes that prevent their participation.
(Article 6)
Please provide information about measures:
(a) to strengthen and accelerate the deinstitutionalisation process through the strategy, ‘Time to Move on from Congregated Settings – a Strategy for Community Inclusion’ (CRPD/C/IRL/1, para 234), including timelines and indicators to independently assess progress, and to ensure adherence to the Convention;
(b) to strengthen approaches and investment in accessible public, social and private housing, as well as information about outcomes of the ‘National Housing Strategy for Disabled People 2022-2027;
(c) to prevent placement of young people with disabilities in nursing homes and to support relocation of young people with disabilities in nursing homes into appropriate housing in the community;
(d) to provide a legal right to personal assistance defined by choice and control and to standardise a human rights compliant assessment process to ensure equitable access to personal assistance across Ireland;
(e) to publish a review of the Personalised Budget Pilot, and implement further rollout of an accessible, rights-based, person-centred scheme;
(f) to address the waiting lists and delays for essential community-based supports and early intervention services for children with disabilities, including through the Child Disability Network Team.
(Article 19)
Other issues raised in the List of Issues Report
DPO Support: The Committee asked the Government to provide information about what measures it has in place to “to ensure the close consultation and active involvement of persons with disabilities through their representative organisations in the development of the Programme Plans of Action to implement the National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People 2025-2030 (the Strategy 2025-2030)” and to provide information on “Measures to build the capacity, including multi-annual core funding for DPOs that are “led, directed and governed by persons with disabilities” (General comment No. 7), including those for women with disabilities and children with disabilities to represent the interests of persons with disabilities in national and local consultations, decision-making processes, including in the Delivery and Monitoring Committee for the Strategy 2025-2030.” (Article 1-4)
Equality Acts: The Committee asked the Government to provide information on “Legislative and policy measures, including amendments to the Equality Acts to address multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, such as discrimination against women and girls with disabilities, children with disabilities, older persons with disabilities, Travellers and Roma persons with disabilities, migrant, asylum seeker and refugee persons with disabilities and LGBTIQ+ persons with disabilities” (Article 5)
The Committee asked the government to “to withdraw the reservations and declarations to Article 12, 14 and 27(1);”