Completing step 2 of the online application

Complete the legal practitioner statement

You must submit your application to the Decision Support Service within three months of signing your donor and attorney declarations.

You will need to have the legal practitioner statement completed by a practicing solicitor or a practicing barrister. The solicitor or barrister completing the statement must be registered in Ireland at the time they are completing it.

You will need to provide a copy of the enduring power of attorney arrangement document and a copy of the legal practitioner statement document to the legal practitioner.

Execute the donor and attorney declarations

You and your attorneys will need to be together to sign your declarations.

This is called executing the enduring power of attorney. You must sign the donor declaration, and your attorney must sign the attorney declaration. If you have more than one attorney or any replacement attorney(s), each of them will have to sign their own declaration at this time. Two witnesses will also need to be there when you are signing the documents, and they will need to sign all of the declarations at this time.

The two witnesses:

• must be 18 years of age or older
• neither can be an agent or employee of the attorney(s) (including your replacement attorneys, if any)
• at least one cannot be an immediate family member of you or your attorney, or replacement attorney, if any

An immediate family member includes:

• a spouse, civil partner, or cohabitant
• a child, step-child, son-in-law, or daughter-in-law
• a parent, step-parent, mother-in-law, or father-in-law
• a brother, sister, step-brother, step-sister, brother-in-law, sister-in-law
• a grandparent or grandchild
• an aunt or uncle
• a nephew or niece

Top tip: 

You, your attorneys any replacement attorneys and the same two witnesses must all be in the room together. If the enduring power of attorney is signed on a different date or witnessed by different witnesses you may need to execute it again.

NOTE: You must submit your application to the Decision Support Service within three months of signing your donor and attorney declarations. This means that if you sign your declarations on the 20 April, you must submit your application to the Decision Support Service by the 19 July. 

Complete the statement of capacity

The statement of capacity must be completed after you and your attorney(s) have signed your declarations.

You will need to have the statement of capacity completed by one of the following people:

• a registered medical practitioner (for example, a GP or consultant)
• a registered nurse or midwife
• a registered occupational therapist
• a registered speech and language therapist
• a registered social worker

The person completing the statement must be registered with their relevant professional body in Ireland at the time they are completing it.

You will need to provide a copy of the enduring power of attorney arrangement document, a copy of each of the signed declarations and a copy of the statement of capacity document to the person completing the statement.

Top tip:

The date on the statement of capacity must be on or after the date you signed your declarations. If the date on the statement of capacity is earlier than the date you signed your declarations you may need to get an updated capacity assessment.

Top tip:

There are Regulations that state that a healthcare professional completing the statement of capacity must not be an immediate family member of the donor

Upload the completed documents to your online application

You will need to upload the following completed documents at step 2 of your online application:

• Enduring power of attorney template
• Donor declaration form
• Attorney declaration form(s)
• Legal practitioner statement
• Statement of capacity

Please ensure the documents you upload can be read, are complete and have all pages uploaded.