Mental Health Bill 2024: Committee Stage (Resumed) Seanad Éireann — 2026-01-29 ============================================================ Mary Butler (FF), Waterford They are all very welcome. I am concerned that the Senator's last contribution might give the wrong impression to people over breaches that have been found by HIQA or the Mental Health Commission. I have been Minister of State with responsibility for mental health and older people since 2020. Unfortunately, my Wednesday nights when we are waiting to vote are normally spent reading HIQA and Mental Health Commission reports. I read them every week. They are flagged to me all the time. When non-compliance is identified, the services must submit an implementation corrective and preventive activation plan. The Senator can go home this evening and log on to any one of those seven facilities found in breach. At the very end of that he will see very clearly that they have to submit a plan to make sure that everything is order and if it is not in order they may not be registered. With the new Bill, the Mental Health Commission will be given substantially enhanced powers to deal with issues of non-compliance by services on top of what it already has. The Mental Health Commission must take all reasonable steps to protect the rights and interests of persons detained in registered acute mental health centres. I am not here to defend the Mental Health Commission or HIQA for that matter because there is a crossover, but they are the regulators. They are both independent of the Senator, independent of me and independent of the Government. They have a difficult job to do and I believe they do it very well. The Mental Health Commission had to respond to issues in Bloomfield before Christmas. It was the first time ever at the Mental Health Commission had to go into an approved centre in relation to mental health. Unfortunately, I had to deal with it about 20 times as Minister of State with responsibility for older people in relation nursing homes where HIQA had to go in. For anybody who might have a loved one in any of these facilities I would hate the impression to be given that if there is a breach such that a facility is not compliant or not substantially compliant, we wait for the mental health report once a year. That is completely inaccurate and false. That is why I was not able to legislate for having all unannounced inspections because as soon as there is a breach there are follow-up meetings, of which there could be two, three, four or maybe five meetings. There is follow-through the whole time to make sure that they are substantially compliant or compliant in relation to issues that have been there. Sometimes it can relate to buildings or fire safety measures. It might relate to older buildings that might be listed buildings. We have a plan in place to replace many of the approved centres because they may not be compliant in their buildings. Most non-compliance cases relate to buildings or fire escapes. I am not worried about a bit of a scuff on a skirting board. However, if it relates to care plans, nutrition or the care being provided to these people, that is when I get worried. I keep a close eye on every one of those reports. They are there for the public to see. Every time somebody comes into my office to speak about their loved one who may have to take the next step and go into a nursing home, I always ask if they have read the HIQA report. They often put their mum's or dad's name down for three nursing homes in their area hoping to get in. I always suggest they go off and read the HIQA report. That is my line every time. Reading the HIQA report is not scaremongering. It provides an inside view of what an unannounced inspection found on a day, which is really important. All this work goes on every day of the week. Officials from the Mental Health Commission today could be in a non-compliant facility working with it to make sure it becomes compliant. When a facility seeks a registration if it is not compliant, it is in trouble. --- 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/2026-01-29/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:34+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-01-29