Mental Health Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-10
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Mary Butler (FF), Waterford

I thank the Senators again. In order to clarify, nowhere in the Bill talks about a young person being admitted to an adult ward. Nowhere in the Bill does it state a young person cannot be admitted to an adult ward. What I said earlier is that in the majority of cases I am aware of, the stay is up to a maximum of 48 hours. This is not written down anywhere. I have asked the Mental Health Commission to review the existing code of practice on such admissions in relation to the timeframe also. It would be very helpful if there were a clear code of practice on such admissions and that it would be updated.
If I were to table an amendment to state that any child under the age of 18 admitted to an adult ward should be there for no more than 72 hours, then we would be legislating to do it. This is not the right thing to do because when we legislate to do it, it can happen. I am trying to not legislate in order to prevent it from happening. If I were to legislate to state that if it does happen then it is okay for them to stay up to 72 hours, it would open the door. Please God, the number next year will be zero. This is what I want to see happening.
At the same time, as Senators Costello and O'Reilly said, there will always be situations which are very difficult to legislate for. Something such as Storm Bram could happen and there could be a young person in a critical condition and it may not be safe to move them. Do we legislate to stop a clinician putting that child into a safe place? I do not think we can. If we were still in the situation we had when I came in in 2020, with 80, 90 or 100 children being inappropriately placed, it would be a different situation. I would be standing here feeling differently. Because such an effort has been made across all approved centres to reduce this to a situation where we have practically no child, teenager or young adolescent inappropriately placed, the right thing to do is what I am proposing. I believe this 100% in my heart of hearts. If there is a situation at 10 p.m., 11 p.m. or 12 midnight on any night of the week and a consultant has to make a choice that will result in a young person seeing the morning or not seeing the morning, the right thing to do is not to tie that clinician's hands behind their backs. I feel really strongly about this. I hope I have explained it.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-12-10/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:26+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-10