Mental Health Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-09
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Laura Harmon (LAB), Industrial and Commercial Panel

I move amendment No. 15:
In page 16, to delete lines 32 to 35.
I will speak to amendment Nos. 15 and 17. Amendment No. 15 proposes the deletion of the definition of "mental disorder" from the Bill. From consultations with people with lived experience, the term "mental disorder" has repeatedly been identified as stigmatising, reductive and a medically loaded term. Many individuals feel it pathologises their experiences in a way that reinforces negative stereotypes, undermines their autonomy and contributes to discrimination both within healthcare systems and society at large. This terminology can obscure the social, psychological and environmental factors that shape mental distress, framing it instead as a fixed individual pathology.
Amendment No. 17 would insert a definition of "mental health difficulty" and-or "psychosocial disability". We believe this is a more appropriate definition that does not carry the reductive and stigmatising weight of "mental disorder" and it would bring the Bill in line with the language recommended by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which refers to psychosocial disability, the language used in Sharing the Vision, Ireland's national mental health policy, which uses "mental health difficulties" and the language recommended by the expert review group of the Mental Health Act, which was "mental illness".

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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