The National Safeguarding Committee2019-02-042019-02-042017-12https://hdl.handle.net/10147/624083A Ward of Court is an individual who has been deemed by the court to lack capacity to make decisions for himself or herself, and where the court steps in to act as agent1 for the individual. This may arise due to dementia, intellectual disability, acquired brain injury or other reasons. Usually, a person is made a Ward following an application by a family member, the person’s own solicitor or the Health Service Executive (HSE). In the vast majority of cases, at the time of writing, these applications are made in the “best interests” of the individual: to protect him or her and his or her assets. There are almost 3,000 wards, with total assets of over €1 billion. 2 Our findings indicate that the procedures of the Ward of Court system in Ireland rely excessively on the integrity of families and professionals acting in the best interests of vulnerable adults. It also is heavily deferential to the professional integrity and competence of legal and medical practitioners. However, there are concerns that there are insufficient checks to ensure that the interests of a proposed Ward are independently considered and possible conflicts identified.enAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United Stateshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/WARDSHIPCAPACITY TO CONSENTLEGAL CAPACITYReport