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

Mary Butler (FF), Waterford

I will put on the record that when I came in here last week, I was accused of not having compassion. Today I have been accused of not being capable. I believe these amendments are in keeping with human rights standards. The Senator hardly thinks or imagines that we would bring forward a Bill that is not in keeping with human rights standards. He hardly thinks that an expert panel in 2014 put all the work into putting a Bill in place. He hardly thinks my officials have worked for five years to bring in a Bill that would not be in keeping with human rights standards and would not be compliant with our ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Does he honestly think that in 2025, I would come before the Seanad with a Bill that was not doing that?

---

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