Call for new laws o protect elderly

AN outdated and expensive legal system designed to protect vulnerable elderly people should be scrapped and replaced with a new, more flexible public guardian’s office, law reformers said yesterday.

Following the publication of its report on the law and elderly people, the Law Reform Commission described the ward of court system as archaic and "rooted in the 19th century".

Currently, an elderly person has to be mentally incapable, usually suffering from dementia, for a ward of court order to be made.