Disabled Persons (Northern Ireland) Act 1989

8 Duty of Board to take into account abilities of carer

(1) Where—

(a) a disabled person is living at home and receiving a substantial amount of care on a regular basis from another person (who is not a person employed to provide such care by any body in the exercise of its functions under any enactment), and

(b) it falls to a Board to decide whether the disabled person’s needs call for the provision of any personal social services for him,

the Board shall, in deciding that question, have regard to the ability of that other person to continue to provide such care on a regular basis.

(2) Where that other person is unable to communicate, or (as the case may be) be communicated with, orally or in writing (or in each of those ways) by reason of any mental or physical incapacity, the Board shall provide such services as, in its opinion, are necessary to ensure that any such incapacity does not prevent the Board from being properly informed as to the ability of that person to continue to provide care as mentioned in subsection (1).

(3) Section 3(8) shall apply for the purposes of subsection (2) above as it applies for the purposes of section 3(7), but as if any reference to the disabled person or his authorised representative were a reference to the person mentioned in subsection (2).