Mental Health Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-17
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Mary Butler (FF), Waterford

The information I have is that two young people, with the support of their parents, were in an adult facility for a very short period. If I legislate for that not to happen, there will be cases of young persons, who are a risk to themselves or others, being left out of a facility overnight. We all know what might happen then. That is the first point.
The second point is that if we legislate to allow such placements for up to 72 hours, I would be afraid that the trend would reverse because people might say there is now legislation in place so under-18s can be kept in an adult facility for that length of time. I do not want to encourage that at all. I want to be able to come in here in the new year and say there were no such cases. I will not legislate to open the door again. That is the way I feel about it. However, I certainly will not legislate to tie a consultant's hand behind their back in real time in a very difficult situation when it is a choice of life over death.
We have spent a lot of time debating this, so I will conclude on my third point because I want to try to move the Bill on. We have to get the line right between advocacy and treatment. It has to be workable. You cannot only look at it from one side. I have to try to meet it in the middle so that we are supporting every person with a mental disorder, illness or condition, whether it is emotional distress or whatever else. We also have to support the clinicians, who are qualified and trained, by ensuring they are able to do their job as well. We cannot lose sight of that in this Bill. The direction of travel for the past week or two has only been in relation to the person who needs the support. There are a lot of people who need support but we need qualified people to deliver that support as well.

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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