Mental Health Bill 2024: From the Seanad
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-29
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Mary Butler (FF), Waterford

I believe there are around 180 amendments in this grouping, so I will not repeat them. While there is a significant amount of amendments in this grouping, they all relate to smaller amendments. These amendments are being introduced to provide clarity or for consistency with wording elsewhere. There are no policy changes in this grouping. To pick some examples from this group, amendment No. 55 inserts a comma after the word "means", amendment No. 64 deletes a comma after the word "particular", amendment No. 174 deletes a line and amendment No. 171 inserts that same line earlier in the section.
After the Bill passed Committee Stage in the Seanad, officials across my Department and across the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, the Attorney General’s office and the Bills office reviewed the Bill line by line. This is the last opportunity to amend and improve the Bill. Considering this, I gave additional time to allow for more reviews and readings of the Bill to take place. The Bill is over 200 pages long and contains 268 sections. On Committee and Report Stages in the Dáil and on Committee Stage in the Seanad, I introduced a large number of amendments at each Stage to improve the Bill, based on continued consultation with stakeholders. Considering the size and complexity of the Bill, as well as the many amendments that had been introduced, I gave additional time for officials in my Department, the Attorney General's office and the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel to read through the Bill line by line. From these very close readings of the Bill, I introduced a significant number of technical amendments on Report Stage in the Seanad to address typographical and grammatical issues, ensure consistency across sections and improve clarity. This grouping relates to these amendments. While it is a very large grouping, it does not contain policy changes.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-29