Projects look at stronger legal reforms for people with disabilities

A stronger voice may emerge for people with disabilities on legal reforms in areas such as sexual consent, criminal responsibility or medical treatment from a new research project.

Eilionoir Flynn will lead the team at NUI Galway’s centre for disability law after becoming the youngest recipient of a European Research Council (ERC) starting grant. Hers is one of nine in Ireland, worth €12.5m, announced yesterday by Research Minister Damien English.

The Voices project will take a radical approach to develop new law reform ideas based on the concept of “universal legal capacity”, a basic human freedom to make one’s own decisions and have them respected by law.