Mental Health Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) Seanad Éireann — 2026-01-20 ============================================================ Nicole Ryan (SF), Administrative Panel I will speak to amendments Nos. 68 and 112. Amendment No. 68 is about changing the timeframe from 24 hours to 72 hours. It is not about weakening safeguards. We can look at it both ways because we are weighing up whether someone needs intervention but sometimes an assessment may not have done properly and, therefore, extra time might be required. The amendment is about ensuring safeguards that are meaningful and deliverable in practice because safeguards that cannot be implemented properly are not safeguards at all. The current provision requires the key processes, including clinical assessment, documentation, consultation and review, be completed within the first 24 hours. In theory, that is, of course, reasonable. However, in practice it is not always clinically achievable because acute units are under pressure in terms of staffing. Rural hospitals are limited in respect of speciality availability. There are weekends and bank holidays. In complex cases, a person may be highly distressed, sedated or physically unwell. We risk creating a system whereby assessments are rushed to meet a deadline, documentation sometimes becomes a box-ticking exercise and the quality of decision-making is compromised. The 72-hour timeframe still ensures urgency, accountability and oversight, but also allows clinicians to carry out proper and considerate assessments, engage meaningfully with the person concerned, consult appropriately with families and advocates where relevant and ensure the decisions are clinically sound and legally robust. Again, we are not trying to delay the Bill. Rather, we are asking for accuracy, quality and patient safety because a rushed assessment done purely to meet statutory deadlines serves absolutely nobody. Protecting rights means doing things properly. We all agree that when someone is detained, restrained or treated without consent, their human rights must be protected in law. The amendment ensures that the law reflects the reality of clinical practice while also maintaining strong protections. We also have to be honest about the pressures our mental health services face. The Minister of State has said this time and time again. We all know staff are doing extraordinary work given the conditions and difficult circumstances they sometimes face. They are sometimes operating in under-resourced and overstretched systems. This amendment does not lower standards. Rather, it allows professionals the time they need to meet them. It protects clinicians from being set up to fail by unrealistic deadlines. Many jurisdictions operate on similar or longer timeframes with comparable safeguards. We are not proposing anything excessive or out of line with best practice. Amendment No. 112 concerns safeguards for treatment without consent. The amendment proposes a modern rights-based mental health system that respects autonomy, dignity and the rule of law. The amendment deals with one of the most serious powers the State can exercise over any individual, that is, the power to administer treatment without consent. At present, the Bill allows for treatment without consent in circumstances that are too loosely framed and insufficiently anchored in Ireland's capacity law, which creates a real risk of overreach, coercion being normalised and people being treated against their will without proper legal protection. Amendment No. 112 would correct that by embedding the principles of the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act directly into the Mental Health Bill where it belongs. There should be no treatment without consent unless capacity is formally assessed. The assessment establishes a clear rule that no person will be administered treatment without their consent unless a formal capacity assessment has been completed and the person has been found to lack capacity. It is not assumed, inferred or implied; it is formally assessed. That is essential because capacity is not a diagnosis. Rather, it is decision and time specific and something that must be supported. This provision brings clarity and legal certainty to a space that has historically been far too vague. Emergency treatment is permitted but tightly defined. The amendment recognises that emergencies happen and clinicians must be able to act where life or imminent safety is at risk. However, the exception is deliberately narrow. Treatment without consent is permitted only where it is immediately necessary to protect life, prevent an immediate and serious threat to health or where no safe or effective alternative is available. This ensures that emergency powers are used only when genuinely necessary, not because a ward is busy, a person is distressed or because consent is inconvenient. Temporary inability is not the same as lack of a capacity. One of the most important protections in this amendment is the explicit recognition that temporary inability to participate does not mean lack of capacity. A person may be sedated, distressed, disorientated or they may just be physically unwell. That does not automatically strip them of their legal rights. The amendment requires that the reasons that capacity assessment could not be completed are clearly recorded and a formal assessment be carried out as soon as possible; in all cases within the 24 hours. This prevents longer periods of treatment without lawful justification. The person must be supported to participate, and this amendment reflects the core philosophy of the 2015 Act to the effect that capacity must be supported as opposed to bypassed. It requires that once a person is able, they must be supported to participate in the assessment in line with their legal rights. It is about respect and dignity and about recognising that people experiencing mental distress are still right-holders. Amendment No. 112 introduces something that is absolutely essential in a system that permits coercive powers, which is independent oversight. We have talked about this. It requires the Mental Health Commission to audit every instance where treatment is administered without consent before capacity assessment is completed. This is not around bureaucracy; it is all about accountability and transparency. Equally, it also moves us closer to our compliance with the international human rights standards, including the UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which is clear that substituted decision-making or coercive treatment for people must be tightly restricted. --- 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