Mental Health Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-17
============================================================

Frances Black (IND), Industrial and Commercial Panel

I want to put on record what I said last week. While it is welcome that the Bill recognises age-appropriate care for children, the qualifier "in so far as is practicable" is far too vague and weak. Huge progress has been made in this area, and I commend the Minister of State on that, but I still believe legal safeguards are needed. While the number of children placed in adult units has declined significantly in recent years - the Minister of State is to be commended in that regard - there is a risk of regression in the absence of a legal prohibition, particularly, as I said last week, if someone is not watching the numbers as closely as the Minister of State has been watching them. I am worried about what will happen in the next term if she is not here. Along with investing in child-centred mental health infrastructure, we need staff and crisis response systems that ensure timely access to appropriate care. We have to put safeguards for children in the legislation because even though the Minister of State is doing a really great job, her successor might not be as passionate as she is about this matter.

---

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/2025-12-17/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:28+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-17