Mental Health Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-17
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Nicole Ryan (SF), Administrative Panel

I was out ill last week so I was not here in the Chamber. The Minister of State can rest assured I watched both debates from home in my bed.
I want to speak to section 10 in the context of a wider issue that came sharply into focus during last week's debate, and that was Ireland's repeated reliance on international human rights conventions in rhetoric without fully translating those obligations into domestic law. Last week, we heard frequent references to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. What was far less acknowledged, however, was that this Bill also directly engaged with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a convention that Ireland ratified 30 years ago and carries very specific obligations when it comes to children, liberty, autonomy, participation and protection from arbitrary detention. Neither convention is meaningfully embedded in the text of this legislation, though. Signing conventions is not legislating for them. Ireland has signed and ratified both the UNCRPD and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and that creates obligations but ratification does not protect a single child or adult unless those rights are given into law.
I have a few questions around this for the Minister of State. Is it not the responsibility of these Houses to legislate for the conventions that we sign? If we acknowledge these obligations, why are they not clearly reflected in section 10?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-12-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:28+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-17