Mental Health Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed)
Seanad Éireann — 2026-01-28
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Mary Butler (FF), Waterford

The court will provide the necessary independent oversight. A Bill of this nature involves interacting with other Departments, as we have spoken about in respect of the Department of justice and the changes it made in regard to family courts. In addition, as I said, a lot of these amendments came from the Department of children. My understanding is that the court will provide the independent oversight that is necessary.
Amendment No. 234, which is a lengthy amendment, was also drawn up following consultation. These orders were put in place at the request of the Department of children. The children concerned will be in the physical care of Tusla the whole time, which is really important to understand. The section is to ensure there are appropriate discharge pathways for every child, regardless of his or her status. We spoke about that last week in relation to the types of care. It does not matter how the child presents, whether via public, private or voluntary care or through Tusla. That child will be cared for appropriately to deal with the mental health issues he or she presents.
These amendments are also to ensure the same level of legal safeguards under this Bill will be in place for children in court proceedings as apply to children in court proceedings under the Child Care Act 1991. A huge amount of time had to be spent aligning this part of the Bill with various other Acts that are really important.
The amendments also ensure that in cases where Tusla is the legal parent of a child, an issue Senator Boyhan has raised throughout the debate and about which I know he is deeply concerned, that child can be admitted to inpatient mental health services, and that, while in the care of Tusla, consent to the admission, treatment and discharge of that child is treated in exactly the same way as for any other child. Tusla is acting as the parent or guardian of that child at that time.

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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