Mental Health Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-09
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Lynn Ruane (IND), University of Dublin

I am looking at the Minister of State's group of amendments. I am wondering about the reasoning just to understand them. For example, amendment No. 69 is in this group. In a few places we delete the phrase "consultant psychiatrist responsible for the care and treatment of an involuntarily admitted person" and we substitute that with the phrasing "responsible consultant psychiatrist". I want to understand why the language is to be changed there. I ask from the point of view of a family member or someone else who is concerned about such a case. If you are involuntary, and a person has been responsible for your care and has been involved for one week, two weeks or three weeks, and then another consultant comes in and makes an over-riding decision, they will not have had the experience with you for the first part of your care. What is the difference in responsibility and access that person has? I will explain the reason I am asking. Again, I want to mention the girl who was released by a consultant who came in. He was not the consultant who had been there in the first few days and who had signed off on the involuntary order. A different consultant came in and over-rode that. That person then left the building and took their own life.
The Minister of State brought up compassion. People receive and feel when there is compassion. Last week lots of us spoke about very serious situations of people very dear and close to us. There was not really a compassionate response from the Minister of State in terms of acknowledging the people who were mentioned in the room. She spoke back on the Bill and the Bill alone. We were trying to put the people at the centre of that. There was not a moment to acknowledge the gravity of the situations people were bringing. I stand over that comment in the context of what was being received on this side of the House in terms of the debate and the defensiveness. As the Minister of State knows, these are real people and real lives. People are grieving constantly for people who have died due to the issue we are talking about. That is why it requires a level of compassion in the room that can be felt and can be responsive. We have had plenty of Ministers and people who have engaged with us. They may not agree with our amendments and may vote down our amendments or not take them, but you can feel the recognition and acknowledgement of the topic and what is being discussed.
I want to know about the replacement of the language. I know if it was my child or my loved one, I would want the person who has had the most access to them to be making certain decisions. Does this change that in any shape or form?

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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