Mental Health Bill 2024: Report and Final Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-04-16
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Victor Boyhan (IND), Agricultural Panel

I wish to speak on this. I know I speak for others here. We have had a lot of contacts from people in relation to electroconvulsive therapy treatment, ECT. It is commonly used. We have seen documentaries about it historically where no consent was given. This was forced ECT. People have had memory loss. I have a colleague who is a practising psychiatrist who told me of his concerns relating to patients who have presented to him, seeing someone go through electroconvulsive therapy and the preparation for that. He has told me about cases. It is supervised, it is not just a psychiatric nurse or clinician who do it. I do not want to get into the detail of it here. It is very professional and I do not in any way want to misrepresent what he told me in confidence. However, he is deeply concerned and he is a professional psychiatrist. The issue is there are people who are having this against their will. Over the last few years, people who were very difficult were threatened with it for lack of co-operation. There is a terrible expression which anyone listening in today will know because it is commonly used in psychiatric hospitals – “your one” or “he needs a belt of the box”. A psychiatric nurse could sit in my office a few weeks ago and tell me that, and a psychiatrist. There is a common threat of “You will get a belt of the box”. They are talking about ECT. It is a very frightening experience, particularly when you are not well. There is an expectation that patients be compliant, toe the line, do what the staff say or else there will be a belt of the box.
Yes, there is meant to be registration and records kept of that. It is suggested to me that that does not quite happen. It raises questions in terms of the inspectorate of our psychiatric services. I have no doubt but that the Mental Health Commission would be aware of the potential for that abuse. I do not want to get into any more than that except to say I am concerned. I always say about everything, “Put yourself in that position”. We can all put ourselves in the position where it is us at any age where staff say that they think it is good for us to have electroconvulsive therapy treatment, ECT, or a “belt of the box” if we do not toe the line. Any psychiatric nurse listening to this debate will know that expression. It is a shocking expression. It is a humiliation and a degradation and an attack on the constitutional right to bodily integrity, which is enshrined in our Constitution. I will give Alan Shatter this. I had dealings with him in relation to the issue of medication and drug trials on people without their consent in this State in State health services. We discussed at great length the issue of bodily integrity as enshrined in the Constitution. There is a lot of law on this, not particularly on electroconvulsive therapy - I want to be very careful here – but generally. I hope that under this Bill we are all moving on and we will have all this reform in time with the primary legislation and all the promised secondary legislation coming our way in the next year or less, perhaps. I am just concerned.
I ask the Minister of State to explain to this House the rationale for this and how she has been convinced that this is an appropriate amendment to put before us here today.

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Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:49+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-16