Mental Health Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-09
============================================================

Mary Butler (FF), Waterford

There is a clear basis for retaining 21 days as the upper limit for the holding of review board hearings. People who are involuntarily admitted tend to see their condition begin to improve between two to three weeks, as this is how long it takes for medication to take proper effect. Giving people an opportunity to improve their condition within the initial period will help them participate more fully in the process. It normally starts at 14 days, up to 21 days. It is something that I have looked at in depth and we have spoken about it a lot. When we talk about 21 days, it is three weeks, which is 15 working days. I have discussed this with several clinicians who have to attend the tribunals. I am very conscious of the fact that they do clinics midweek and we did not want to cancel clinics in order to provide as much flexibility as possible, having regard also to the person who is waiting for the tribunal. The statistics I outlined earlier show that the majority of them take place on days 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19. That is why I included that a Minister of the day could decide to pull it back slightly.
If we can get to a situation where they are all done within 18 days, I would be happier. That is the reasoning behind it.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-12-09/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:26+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-09