An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-26 ============================================================ Victor Boyhan (IND), Agricultural Panel I am happy to support the Order of Business as proposed by the Deputy Leader today. I wish to bring up two issues. One relates to ongoing issues around mental health. Yesterday, the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, was in the House to deal with my Commencement matter but we did not make a lot of progress. Therefore, I am formally requesting another debate on mental health. I know the Minister of State will be back in the House on 18 March to complete the passage of the Mental Health Bill, which is really important. That date has been confirmed so we are all aware of it. It is the day after St. Patrick's Day. I want to renew my call for the Minister for justice to come in on this occasion. Members will know, having discussed it here previously, that the "RTÉ Investigates" programme that aired about two weeks ago identified very serious issues around a shortage of beds. My Commencement matter yesterday raised the situation of the 50 beds that are currently provided but are vacant. The Minister of State made the case that it is difficult to recruit staff and I understand and accept that. As a result, beds have to be opened up incrementally over a period. There are currently 50 beds vacant, as confirmed by the "RTÉ Investigates" programme. That is an issue. We have heard concerns expressed by Shine, the Irish Penal Trust and other advocacy groups and yesterday, at a hearing in Cloverhill Prison, Judge Alan Mitchell expressed serious concern about the number of people presenting to him with mental health difficulties whom he has no option but to put back in prison. He is not prepared to continue to do that and he has put the Government on notice, as was documented in various media yesterday. There are challenges around it. While it is a mental health issue, the blockage lies with justice and the prison system. Prison is not appropriate. People do not get well in prison if they have mental health problems and sometimes the reasons people are in prison are connected with all of that. We need to hear commentary from the Minister for justice on this occasion because we have to have a collaborative approach. We need to get the 50 beds open. We can be reasonable and accept that it will be transitional. It might be ambitious but it would be great if we could say that we will open 25 beds this year and 25 next year, or whatever. Let us hear what the logistics are and have a reasonable, fair and pragmatic debate about it. I have continuously asked for a debate on rural housing. Many Members of this House represent rural communities and they know better than me the demand for rural housing. We have been told continuously that we cannot proceed. The rural housing guidelines are out of date but there are imaginative ways in which we can enhance our villages and towns. We can have small clusters of houses. Clearly there are very good things going on in the area of renovation and restoration but we need to do more. A lot of people would like to work from home two or three days a week. They want to support their rural communities. GAA clubs, sports clubs, parishes, and national schools are facing imminent closure because of a lack of people. People want choice and it is about having various options. I would expect nothing less of rural public representatives that they would be here beating the drum about affording people the opportunity to live in rural communities. --- 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/2026-02-26/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:42+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-26