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1,469 wards of court remain, despite deadline

High Court President Mr Justice David Barniville has said that the system intended to restore capacity to vulnerable adults will be damaged if they are forced to switch from the previous ‘wardship’ set-up.

In the two years since the introduced of assisted decision-making, in the wake of the 2015 Capacity Act,  only a very low number of  voluntary discharge applications had been made on behalf of ‘wards of courts’, he said.

This is despite a statutory deadline of 26 April 2026 next year, by which all existing wards must exit the system.

“Personally, I would be against forcing people to come out of wardship. If you have to force people to restore their autonomy . . . it is pretty incongruous,” he said, speaking to the Irish Times.

Fewer than one quarter of wards’ representatives have applied for them to exit wardship, according to Courts Service figures.

No discharge request

Just 468 applications to discharge wards of court were made last year, leaving 1,469 wards for whom no discharge request has been made.

By end-February, 110 wards had completed the discharge process.