Mental Health Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-16
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Mary Butler (FF), Waterford

I know that. I have read the amendment, and I understand where the Senators are coming from, but in fairness they have to look at the reality in 2026 and not the reality in 2008 when we had 247 children. I do not believe we need to pre-empt a Minister of State following in my footsteps, whoever it will be and whenever that happens. This is policy embedded in the Department of Health and the HSE. This is policy that is embedded in any approved centre in Ireland, whether public, private or voluntary. This is policy that nobody wants to see a young person there. We then get to the stage like where we are going now, where 16-year-olds, when this Bill is enacted, will be able to make decisions about their own mental health. Every young person we are talking about is 17-plus. We are not talking about ten-, 11-, 12- or 13-year-olds. The statistics do not lie, and I see these cases the whole time. I have spent so much time debating this piece in the Dáil and the Seanad. I meet organisations. I meet the ombudsman. I meet Mental Health Reform and so many different organisations, whether the college of psychiatry or the Psychological Society of Ireland. I acknowledge everybody who is here. I thank them for following this the whole way through. They have been great like that, but I just cannot move on this. The Senator is a reasonable person, and I am a reasonable person. I try to work with Members and never come in with a closed mind in relation to amendments, but I have never felt more strongly about anything in my entire life. I would not want to legislate for this because I would have to write another section into the Bill to say it is okay that a child could be an inpatient in an adult unit. That is not there. I do not want to legislate for it, and I do not want to legislate for a provision up to 72 hours. I want to get to a situation where that does not happen. I encourage people, if they really are concerned about it, to speak to a parent whose child went in overnight to save their life because I have spoken to them.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-04-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-16