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

I reiterate that any information provided to an involuntarily admitted person should be accessible to that person so I will be accepting the amendment.
With respect to amendments No. 73b, 104b, 104c, 246a and 247a, I believe that the matters to which they relate are adequately provided for elsewhere in the Bill. What is contained in amendment No. 73b is covered by the exact same wording in section 451(1)(a). I do not believe we need to provide it again.
In the context of amendments Nos. 104b and 104c, the provision of information for voluntarily admitted persons in a form and language that the person in receipt can understand is provided for in section 42(1)(c). In relation to voluntarily admitted persons, consent to treatment is provided on the same common law basis as consent to, or refusal of, treatment in any other area of healthcare. Common law requires valid consent for treatment meaning that a person must have the capacity to give his or her consent. He or she must also be given enough information to ensure that consent to treatment is informed. Treatment must also be given voluntarily, which means that it is given without coercion. I do not believe that we need to state that consent to treatment for voluntary admitted people must be given free without threats or inducements because this is already the basis of the understanding of consent in common law.
On amendments 246a and 247a, the provision of information for voluntarily admitted children or children 16 years or older without capacity who are admitted with parental consent, section 74(4) states that the information provided must be in a form and language the person in receipt can understand. With regard to consent for children being obtained freely without threats or inducements, this is included already in section 80(1) and (2) in relation to a child's consent to treatments.
As stated, I am accepting amendment No. 73a. What is being sought in the other five amendments is already catered for in the Bill. It is such a large Bill, containing 220 sections, that it is really easy that something would be duplicated. It has been gone through with a fine toothcomb to make sure that what Senator Black is proposing is already there.

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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