Mental Health Bill 2024: From the Seanad Dail Éireann — 2026-04-29 ============================================================ Mary Butler (FF), Waterford I thank Deputies Quaide and Clarke for acknowledging the significant improvements that have been made since we have been here last. I appreciate that. In relation to amendment No. 276, the reality is that there needs to be a legal basis for the Garda to take a child into custody where the child is an immediate and serious risk of harm and to ensure there are pathways for that child to be examined and receive treatment. That is already in the legislation since 2001. That could happen every day of the week if it was needed. It is very rare that the Garda has to take a child into custody, but it is very important for the Garda that if a child is an immediate and serious risk of harm to themselves or others, there must be pathways and a legal basis for the Garda to act. This amendment is being introduced to address operational concerns raised by some key stakeholders. There was a huge amount of engagement with the Department of justice around this. The new section 74 recognises the distinct and important roles of the Garda, the HSE and Tusla. Depending on the circumstances of the child, one of these three bodies will be responsible for taking charge of the child and the new section 74 recognises the different functions of each. It is an extremely rare event where a garda must take a child into custody due to a suspected mental disorder but it does happen on occasion. Section 74 of the Bill will provide absolute clarity as to the powers as well as the responsibilities of members of An Garda Síochána when taking a child into custody because of his or her mental disorder. Section 74 includes a number of safeguards that will help protect the rights of children, including a very strict time limit for which a child can be in custody. Those very high criteria must be met, namely, that the child is an immediate or serious risk of harm to self or others due to a mental disorder and the automatic referral to the HSE for examination. A huge amount of work has been done on this section. There might be a time when a 16- or 17-year-old might have to be taken into Garda custody. The Garda have to have a legal framework. We are improving what is already there in the 2001 legislation. I also want to talk about children in adult wards. As Deputies will know, this is something I feel extremely passionate about. We got the figures recently while I was before the Seanad. Last year, there were five young people involved. Four of them spent one night in an adult ward and the other spent two nights in an adult ward. Over the whole year, including all of the children who spent time in an approved centre, there were six nights. That happened with the support and consent of their parents in all cases. They were in a single room on their own with 24-hour one-on-one support while the appropriate supports were being put in place. I have spoken about this before. I know of one particular case - this is going back a few years - where it was appropriate for a young person to stay in a facility. There are many different reasons this happens. We have come from a situation where the amount of young people being held in adult wards was simply not acceptable. I do not want to see any child in an adult facility. Nobody wants to see it. I do not know any clinician who wants to see it. However, sometimes there is a crisis in real time. It could happen at 10 p.m., 11 p.m., midnight, 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. I have spoken to families. I have spoken to young people who were that person who stayed overnight for their own safety. I do not have a medical background but I have a lot of lived experience, living experience and I listen. It would be remiss of me to tie the hands of any clinician who has to make that decision at midnight or 1 a.m. when a young person is a risk to themselves or others. Over 95% of the time, it is people of 17 years of age or older. I have come across very few cases where there is not family consent and support. We have discussed this at length here and in the Seanad. I have given examples of cases. There was one example in Donegal when there was a storm on the particular night and it was not safe for the staff to move the person. Sometimes, there are just extreme circumstances. However, I do know that any clinician involved in having to detain a young person looks at every opportunity to not do that. They do their utmost. I remember speaking to a clinician at University Hospital Waterford about a case. Without identifying anybody, the clinician said that it was life or death at the time and if he had not detained that young person under the Act, it would have been a different story. The parents begged him to do that because they felt they could not take the child home with them. It is not a budget issue regarding beds for children. Most of the time, we are running at 70% capacity among our inpatient beds. The majority of the beds are in Linn Dara, Eist Linn, Merlin Park and St. Vincent's. Twenty of the 51 beds we have open are for eating disorders and in most of those cases, the children and young people are there for between three and seven months because of the nature of what they are dealing with. One of the amendments raised in the Seanad sought to write into the Bill that no young person could be detained for more than 72 hours. The reason I did not accept that amendment was because we would have been writing into legislation that it was okay to detain a young person. I want to get to a stage where no child is detained in adult wards. We had five such children last year and six the year before. Last year, it was six nights overall. If we write that into this new Bill, which will become an Act next week, please God, we will be saying it is okay to take a young person into an adult ward for up to 72 hours. That is the reason I did not accept the amendment. I do not want to normalise it. A huge amount of work has been done by clinicians and by those working in approved centres to make sure that they find the appropriate setting for that young person. In some cases, depending on where they are living, it can be easier and quicker to find that accommodation than in other areas. For that reason, and as I said in the Seanad, I will take it to the grave with me if I get this wrong but I do not think I am doing this wrong in this respect. If it will only help one child, it will be worth it for me. --- 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/dail/2026-04-29/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:08+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-04-29