DEAR EDITOR,

On page 32 of last week’s Irish Country Living magazine, your legal advice columnist responded to a query about setting up an enduring power of attorney (EPA). An EPA is an important legal instrument for advance planning.

It allows an adult to nominate a person or persons who they know and trust to make decisions on their behalf, should they ever lose their capacity in the future.

As your columnist notes, having an EPA in place can be especially important for farm owners. It is correct that the rules and processes for EPAs have changed since 26 April 2023, when the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015 became operational.

Anyone making an EPA after that date must now register it with the Decision Support Service (DSS) at the time when they make it. The fee to apply to register an EPA with the DSS is €30.

Your columnist states in her reply to your reader that: ‘In July 2024, there had only been 10 new EPAs activated since the new system was introduced last April…’. There were, in fact, 531 EPAs fully registered on the DSS system at the end of July 2024.

This means that these EPAs had been submitted, reviewed and registered, to be relied on in future if necessary. To clarify, an ‘activated’ (or ‘notified’) EPA is one where the person who made it has already lost capacity in the short time since the EPA was made and registered after April last year.

There are now – as of 13 December 2024 – more than 1,300 EPAs fully registered with the DSS, and a further 6,000 active applications, including more than 1,400 submitted for review and registration.

The DSS encourages anyone who would like to know more to call our dedicated EPA helpdesk, where trained members of staff are on hand to offer support with new and ongoing applications, from account opening and through all stages of the process.

This team can be reached by emailing: EPAhelpdesk@decisionsupportservice.ie, or by dialling freephone 01-211-9750.