Mental Health Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2026-01-20
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Mary Butler (FF), Waterford

Briefly, I will try to answer those questions. There is a statutory right for advocacy in older persons and disability services. There is a statutory right to it. This has been set out in secondary legislation. By putting it into secondary legislation, we will have greater flexibility in setting out the roles and responsibilities of an advocate. For example, advocacy will work differently in mental health because there are tribunals and legal representatives. Secondary legislation allows greater flexibility to tease out these issues.
Let me tell the Senators where we are at the minute. Today's patient advocacy services have completed stage 1 of their internal mental health scoping strategy and have conducted preliminary research into the current legal and policy framework, mapping current mental health services, complaints processes and advocacy services currently in place for mental health. They have to see the whole future before they decide how they will go in and deliver the service. Patient advocacy services have identified the next steps required to inform its extension - hence I am meeting them - to support those who are accessing mental health services who have been reviewed and approved by their board. The next phase of the strategy, from quarter 1 2026, will include the formation of a mental health project group and further research on a statutory right to independent advocacy, complaints mechanisms and stakeholder mapping and consultation. This will inform future project work to expand access to advocacy in mental health services within the duration of the patient advocacy service contract.
The work is under way. It is already happening. I have funded it. I will fund it even more so in next year's budget. More than ever, I want to see patient advocacy services across mental health facilities. We are all in agreement here. It is easier to work it through secondary legislation. That is the best advice I have been given by the Attorney General and the Office of Parliamentary Counsel.
That is the way we do it. It is under way. I will keep the Senator updated. I appreciate what he said about potentially withdrawing that. I am on the record of the Seanad for ever more as having said that. My word is my bond. As I said, I will update the Senator because I will be before the House in the next couple of weeks regarding the meeting with the patient advocacy services.
I completely agree with Senator Boyhan. I have made my feelings very clear to the HSE and regional executive officer that I, as Minister of State with responsibility for mental health, am fully behind the HSE, that is, the State, Government and taxpayer, buying the Bloomfield facility that supports the most vulnerable people in society. After that, the information is commercially sensitive. That is where I am at.

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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