It is important acknowledge the surgical hub. Earlier, the Deputy said he is a fan of surgical hubs. Some €90 million in capital investment is being spent on the surgical hub. I was delighted to be there last year, along with the Minister, to turn the sod on it, even though it was well under way at the time and will be open before Christmas, which is really important. Another piece of good news is that a site has been identified in Waterford city for a new ambulance base, which is also really important. I do not ha…

I am taking this on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Murnane O'Connor. She sends her apologies. I thank Deputies Ardagh and Daly for their interest in the prevention of drug use among young people in Ireland and for the opportunity to provide an update to the House on this very important work. As Deputy Daly will be aware, the Minister of State published the draft national drugs strategy in early February. The successor strategy will seek to further the progress made under the previous drugs strategy and emp…

Planet Youth Ireland is an initiative to promote, as Deputy Daly said, well-being among our children and adolescents. It takes a ground-up approach whereby local regions enter into a process that researches local government agencies, the education sector and young people themselves. Planet Youth is not an intervention, though, rather a data collection exercise that provides evidence to inform interventions. The Icelandic prevention model refers to efforts made in Iceland to address adolescent drugs and alcohol use.…

Planet Youth Ireland communicated that it intends to discontinue its links with Planet Youth as it was felt the work done by Planet Youth could be done in Ireland at a lower cost. Planet Youth Ireland is separating from Planet Youth while continuing to do the work. For example, a number of regular surveys capturing information on youth drug and alcohol use patterns, risks and protective factors have been implemented in Ireland. These include European school survey projects on alcohol and drugs every four years, wit…

This grouping is exclusively related to minor changes to amendments in section 2 of the Bill. For example, all of the amendments that are currently in section 60 of the Bill are being moved to section 2. Another amendment is moving the definition of "involuntary admission order" slightly further down the same page to ensure that all definitions are in alphabetical order. The definition of "child" has been reworded by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel to better align with wording in other relevant Acts. The me…

These amendments relate to definitions and references to the relevant carers for children throughout the Bill, to improve the readability of the Bill and to have consistency throughout the Bill, for example, with regard to provision of information to the relevant carer of the child. We discussed in extensive detail the interaction between the Mental Health Bill and the Child Care Act on Committee Stage and the Senators all took part in those discussions. The two pieces of legislation will interact in cases where a …

I thank Senator Boyhan. As I have said, it is really important when we have a lot of amendments that this is the business end of the Bill. What we are seeing now is quite different to what the Bill was when it started out. Many changes have been made. We went into extensive detail on the interaction between the Mental Health Bill and the Child Care Act on Committee Stage. I thank the Attorney General, the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, the Department of Health, the Department of children and the Bills Office.…

There was extensive debate on the topic of advocacy during Committee Stage on a number of amendments over a number of hours. Following those debates, as well as the amendment tabled by Senator Frances Black, I am introducing a number of amendments relating to information on advocacy supports. These amendments will ensure that any person admitted under the new Act will be given information relating to any available advocacy supports. This will apply to children and adults, ensuring that information and advocacy supp…

Yes.

Quite a lot of issues have been discussed so I will I try to address them as best I can. To be clear, I am introducing a number of amendments related to information on advocacy supports. These amendments will ensure that any person admitted under the new Act will be given information on any available advocacy supports. This will apply to both children and adults, ensuring that information on advocacy supports will be available regardless of a person's age. With regard to advocacy in the legislation, sections 185 an…

When we had the challenges in Kerry in 2022, I funded YAP to go into Kerry. There are 100 plus YAP advocates, 450 plus families who have participated and it is active in 22 counties. We are moving it out as best we can. I want to give a shout-out to the YAP team because they are fantastic. Not a lot of people know about them but I do, and I fund them. I have committed to expanding advocacy at the level of secondary legislation. A huge amount of what I have to do relates to secondary legislation. As I said, there is…

A significant number of the amendments I am introducing on Report Stage relate to transitional provisions. In fact, 26 pages of the Report Stage amendments are either transitional provisions or necessary changes to other enactments, such as the Criminal Law (Insanity) Act 2006. I asked my officials to please give me a paragraph on what transitional provisions mean in plain language in order that we can all understand it. Transitional provisions are the sections of a Bill that allow for the transition from an existi…

I will give a little bit more information that might be helpful. On average, there are approximately 200 to 250 people involuntarily detained under the Mental Health Act 2001 at any one time. Every single person detained under the Act receives the same protection and safeguards. This means that before a person is detained, he or she is examined by a consultant psychiatrist. Officials in my Department consulted with the Mental Health Commission and the HSE regarding the transitional provisions. An important point of…

While there are a significant number of amendments in this grouping, they all relate to smaller amendments. These amendments are being introduced to provide clarity or consistency with wording elsewhere. There are no policy changes in this grouping. To pick some examples from this group, amendment No. 30 removes a comma from between the words "Act" and "shall"; amendment No. 67 replaces the word "reviews" with "review"; and amendment No. 109 inserts a comma between the words "health professional" and "will". Since …

I thank the Senator for the support.

I do. I thank all the Senators for submitting this amendment. Senator Boyhan introduced a similar amendment on Committee Stage and we discussed it at length, we debated it at length and I set out my stall. Unfortunately, my stall has not changed, not because I do not agree with where we are coming from - and I think we will eventually come to that stage - but because the first thing is for the conventions to be adapted into national legislation, and to do so this would have to be a whole-of-government approach. As …

I thank the Senator for his very collegial words and his co-operation.

Is this the fourth Cathaoirleach who has been in the Chair?

I am still standing. I thank everyone again for the way in which the amendment has been presented. We have debated this so many times. As the Senators all know, this is something I feel extremely strongly about. Have any of the Senators ever spoken to a parent whose child was admitted to an adult unit overnight for their own safety or to save their lives? I have 100% done so. When I was here in January, I did not have all of last year's figures. Last year, there were a total of five child admissions to adult units …

There is no place in the Bill at the moment that legislates to allow a child into an adult unit. If I legislate for that, I am afraid it will make it the norm. It is not me. I am driving it from a policy level, but I have to thank all the clinicians, doctors, nurses and everybody who works in mental health and inpatient units. They are driving this. They do not want it either. I engage all the time with clinicians. I say every day of the week that I do not have a clinician's background, but I have lived experience.…