Clíona de Bhailís is an Irish Research Council Government of Ireland Fellow at the Centre for Disability Law and Policy (CDLP). Her research explores how young people who use non-traditional communication can access supported decision-making under Ireland’s new capacity law - the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015. Clíona holds a Bachelor of Civil Law from NUI Galway and graduated with first class honours from the LL.M in Public Law in 2013 with a minor thesis in the area of legal capacity and access to justice for people with disabilities.  Her PhD research, for which she received Irish Research Council funding, focused on decision making for young people with disabilities and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. 

In her previous role with the CDLP she worked as a Research Assistant on the European Research Council funded Voices of Individuals: Collectively Exploring Self-determination (VOICES) project. She has also worked on research projects in the areas of access to justice, advocacy, and disabled children’s rights under the UNCRC and UNCRPD.

Clíona co-ordinates the International Disability Human Rights Clinic module on the LL.M in International and Comparative Disability Law and Policy. She has previously contributed to the Comparative Disability Law module for the BCL and LLB programmes in the School of Law, the Bachelor of Science (Speech and Language Therapy), the Master in Social Work and Masters in Family Studies programmes.