The Minister of State at the Department of Health with special responsibility for disability issues has announced that the Cabinet has decided to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and he stated that the Government will bring a resolution to this effect before the Dáil. The Disabilities (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill 2016 passed Second Stage in this House last February and has been on Committee Stage since and we have now been waiting a year for the amendments from the Minister. A road map to drive the ratification process has been in place since October 2015 and the delay seems to have arisen from the fact that the Minister cannot get his act together to bring forward the amendments to enable us to enact the Bill.

It has always been our position that we ratify UN conventions after the legal provisions have been passed. This is a unique situation where the Minister cannot get the law enacted so he is going to ratify it in advance. Can the Taoiseach confirm when we will see the amendments and the enactment of the Bill? When will we have a formal resolution to ratify the convention before the House?

As the Deputy and Members will be aware, it is ten years this year since we signed the UN declaration and it is important that we now proceed to ratify it, with a view to having all matters fully completed by the end of this year. It involves a number of Departments and I assure Deputy Howlin that, following the decision at Cabinet today, there will now be an accelerated process with engagement between the Department of Justice and Equality and the Department of Health. I expect the resolutions will come before the House for debate within the next few weeks and that the Department of Health will now proceed towards completing the work on the appropriate amendments so that we can proceed step by step in the course of this year to complete the ratification process.