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

Nicole Ryan (SF), Administrative Panel

The Minister of State is doing a great job. There is no doubt about that. To respond to Senator Costello, there is ambition. However, what we are speaking about in terms of ambition is legislating in the context of the UN conventions we signed up to. Under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, especially Article 37, there is a right not to be deprived of liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily, with detention only as a last resort and for the shortest period. The amendments in this regard were ruled out of order, but this would have been a compromise that would reflect that we are taking seriously the convention that we signed up to. We have not done that because the amendments have been ruled out of order. That is the ambition we on this side of the House are looking for to be included in legislation. It is a job for us and for the Government. It is a job collectively for all of us to continue to champion this and make it law as legislators. This is the ambition we are speaking about. It is fantastic that there are only two children in these areas. Previously, the number was a lot bigger. That is a credit to the Minister of State, but we are looking at it through the lens of the UN convention, which states that detention should only be a last resort and should be for the shortest appropriate period.

---

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