No, the other one, about energy costs.

This is a technical amendment to differentiate between references to the Act of 2018 in the Bill. In the Bill generally, the Act of 2018 refers to the Domestic Violence Act 2018, but in Chapter 2 of Part 7 only, it refers to the Data Protection Act 2018. It is quite technical.

I thank the Senator very much. I want to continue in the spirit he referred to. I have had this Bill before the Dáil. I spent ten hours on Committee Stage dealing with 349 amendments. There are 300 new amendments here tonight. Some of them relate to issues I could not deal with in the Dáil regarding chemical restraint and ECT. I removed a section because I wanted to get rid of it completely for 16- and 17-year-olds. However, the majority of these amendments come off the back of engaging with the Departments of chil…

We have to put this into perspective. I have been Minister of State with responsibility for mental health for five and half years. I have been involved the passage of six budgets and have increased the funding for mental health by 50% over that time. A huge amount of work has gone into this Bill. The expert panel was talking about this back in 2014 but I have taken the bull by the horns with this Bill. As stated, I first moved Second Stage of this Bill in September 2024. I was hoping to have it concluded by Christm…

I just wanted to say I will deal with that when we get to the amendments relating to it.

No, I am happy.

These are technical amendments to improve the readability of the Bill. These amendments replace in the Bill references to the "Child and Family Agency" to simply the "Agency". I will just repeat that because I am conscious that Senators do not have the information. We have the grouping list that shows all the amendments grouped together. These amendments replace in the Bill references to the "Child and Family Agency" to simply the "Agency". Other amendments in this grouping simplify references to parents, guardians…

To be clear, these are all technical amendments which have been worked out with the Department of children, the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel and the Department of Health. I will not be touching on care orders here because this does not deal with care orders. This just deals with improving the readability of the Bill to change the references from the "Child and Family Agency" to simply the "Agency" and to change references to parents, guardians and, where the child is the subject of a care order under the Chi…

This is a technical amendment to amend the definition of the board of the Mental Health Commission. This amendment links the definition to section 94 of the Bill, which sets out the functions of the board. We will get to that later.

Again, this is a technical amendment to amend the definition of capacity assessments in section 2 to clarify that capacity assessments refer to children aged 16 years or older. In the last Bill, the age was 18, as Senators understand.

It is 16- and 17-year-olds-----

The Bill still defines as a child as being someone aged under 18 years of age. However, it proposes to amend the definition of capacity assessments in section 2 to clarify that capacity assessments refer to children aged over 16 years of age because the Bill is changing the age of consent so that 16- and 17-year-olds have autonomy as to whether they accept care. We can go into that at a later stage. It is quite complicated. I am not trying to undermine the importance of the point, but the Bill still defines a child…

The Bill deals with the mental health of the child, young person or adult. It does not address whether a child is on the streets or in the care of Tusla. It deals with a child and the mental health challenges that child may or may not have. The Senator asked who will look after a child's interests if they are aged 16 or 17 years, are involuntarily detained, do not have capacity or are bipolar or psychotic. The Bill looks after them. It is all there in the Bill. I do not know whether the Senator has read the Bill in…

I am getting clarification.

I do not want to give the wrong information.

I will answer Senator Ruane first. She raised the issue of a 17-year-old or a 17-and-a-half-year-old who may not have capacity and how we make sure. This is where the care orders come in. It is also where the consultant psychiatrist who is looking after the child comes in. If there is no parental consent, because parental consent is still allowed to be included, they may have to take to the courts. There are safeguards there. I was concerned. I am a mother myself. I was concerned about the need for sufficient safeg…

A child is detained if he or she meets the criteria to be detained but, if it is okay with the Senator, I will get a note done on that part in advance of next week. It might be helpful to tease out all those issues that are there. Some of those issues, obviously, relate to justice and that is where the crossover is coming into the Bill. Some are in relation to children and others relate to mental health. In respect of a child who is involuntarily detained, he or she is involuntarily detained for a reason. That is m…

Comfort was the word I was looking for.

I will just go back to it. This amendment is technical. It clarifies that a capacity assessment only applies to those over 16 years of age. That is what it is doing. Children under 16 will not have a capacity assessment because consent is granted by the parents. These are those where it is determined whether they have capacity through a capacity assessment. In cases where there is no support from the parents, a capacity assessment might be necessary. These are the pieces that have been teased out already. They are …

This is a technical amendment to move the definition of a care order from section 59 of the Bill to section 2. It does not deal with what a care order is. Rather, it is just moving it from one section to another.