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

We are getting into the complicated sections, where there is an involuntary detention of a person who does not have capacity. For example, if that person has already been sedated and is not in a position to have a capacity examination, that is the unintended consequence there. There are consent to treatment provisions in the Bill and I believe they strike the appropriate balance and ensure the necessary safeguards and protections are in place for people deprived of their liberty. That is what we all want, but we also have to acknowledge the reality of treating people in acute mental distress without capacity. We do not know what potential situation people present in.
The administration of treatment may be required prior to the completion of the two capacity assessments in the case where a person is at risk of serious and immediate harm to themselves or others. On this point we are agreed. That is a clinical decision that might have to be made in real time. A clinician could be dealing with someone who is very distressed and may be suicidal. We do not know how they will present. It is a small cohort of people who will be involuntarily detained without capacity. We have to keep remembering that. That is an area we spent a lot of time discussing in the Dáil.
The Bill provides for treatment to be administered prior to the capacity assessment process finishing when the person is admitted on the grounds of treatment, namely, when the person requires treatment immediately. The grounds for treatment means a person requires treatment immediately and where the required treatment can only be given in an inpatient mental health setting and when the treatment is likely to materially benefit. We included the phrase "materially benefit" the person's condition. It is a high bar to reach. The treatment must be required immediately, which means there is a level of urgency to the need. That is the thinking behind it.
A lot of advice was taken from clinicians in relation to this. As I say every day, I am not a clinician, but we have to take the best advice available to us for that tiny cohort of people that this may affect.

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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