Mental Health Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) Seanad Éireann — 2026-01-28 ============================================================ Victor Boyhan (IND), Agricultural Panel I will be brief because, in fairness, taking an overall assessment of all our work to date, we have covered off on a lot of stuff, and once we move away from this section, the sections up to section 91 all deal with children. I have some thoughts and I want to share them with the Minister of State rather than adding additional amendments to today's proceedings. It is vital that the children in involuntary care or subject to restrictive practice have access to an independent complaints mechanism. I have said that. The Minister of State knows where I stand on that and she knows her position on that as well. I have spoken to a number of people who have observed the proceedings here and there remains a concern in relation to the administration of restrictive practices against children. This is all sort of covered off in the Bill. I am only going to share this concern; I am not asking the Minister of State to get into a long, protracted debate. I merely want to bring to Deputy Butler, as Minister of State, the concerns of the public and people involved who are working in this area. This Bill will continue to allow for mechanical restraint, physical restraint and seclusion of a child and states that the restraint used must be determined "after the age, size and physical vulnerability of the child has been assessed and considered by the person ordering the restrictive practice". Having looked at the Bill again today, I note it requires that the registered proprietor of an acute mental health centre must notify the commission in each application of restrictive practice in respect of a child in that registered acute mental health centre or mental health facility and I suppose the real question is whether the commission will review all such cases. As the Minister of State said, there are not many, but there are a sizeable number. I also have had a look at some of the parliamentary questions. I note it is a different practice, but I am not going to comment about the Dáil. I am not a Member of Dáil Éireann. Many of the parliamentary questions now are referred directly to the HSE for a response. I have a copy of the HSE responses but I am not going to go into all of that here. If the commission would review all such cases, such reviews would help monitor patterns, ensure compliance and identify systemic issues. We have seen already, without going back into it, the case of Bloomfield where the Mental Health Commission had statutory responsibility and gave a 94% approval rate for three consecutive years. The Minister of State and I know, and the public knows, and the Dáil knows and this House knows what happened there without me going into all again. Would the Minister of State consider introducing some sort of statutory requirement for post-incident reviews involving the children and their families and their independent advocates to assess the necessity and the impact of such an intervention? How will the Minister of State ensure that the rights of the child, including the rights of those involved, will be heard and respected? That is the question. Would the Minister of State consider it? I am not saying the Minister of State needs to give me her response instantly; she will be back, of course, with this Bill. Are there any further reassurances the Minister of State can given in terms of the role for the commission to review such practices? If that is possible - the Minister of State may need to consider that with her officials and her medical mental health experts who would advise her from time to time and with her own knowledge of the event - there is a strong case there. With the best will in the world and the best intentions of people who are directly working in mental health care and people who have lived experience of these services, we must put it in place because we are now developing primary legislation on mental health care that hopefully will serve the country and the mental health sector for the next ten to 20 years. There may be a case but I would be interested in hearing the Minister of State's response. --- 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/2026-01-28/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:33+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-01-28