Mental Health Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2026-01-20
============================================================

Nessa Cosgrove (LAB), Labour Panel

I move amendment No. 48:
In page 27, line 7, to delete ", or that of another person,".
Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. These amendments, which Senator Harmon and I have tabled, seek to delete the reference to threats to the life or health of another person being grounds for involuntary admission. Involuntary admission should be permitted only in cases where the failure to admit involuntarily could have a serious impact on the health or safety of the individual and where it would be likely to benefit to a clear and material extent. This reflects the principle that involuntary detention must be a last resort, used only when all other options have been exhausted and when the person's well-being is at significant risk.
Using a person's potential risk to others as a stand-alone basis for involuntary detention is not consistent with human rights standards. It shifts the focus away from the individual needs and rights and instead frames them as a threat, reinforcing stigma and discrimination against people with mental health difficulties. This approach risks criminalising mental illness and undermines the therapeutic relationship between individuals and mental health services, which we spoke about when considering the previous amendment. Furthermore, psychiatrists themselves have repeatedly raised concerns about the criteria. Many have pointed out that they are not trained to reliably assess future risk to others and that such assessments are often speculative and prone to error. Relying on them as a legal basis for detention places an unfair burden on clinicians and risks inconsistent or overly cautious decision-making.
We must be extremely careful about creating or maintaining legal frameworks that allow people to be deprived of liberty based on perceived risk rather than actual harm or need. The threshold for such a serious intervention must remain high and the focus must always be on the individuals own health, safety and rights, not on the vague or unproven concerns about others.

---

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/2026-01-20/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:31+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-20