I move amendment 203: In page 94, lines 2 and 3, to delete “consultant psychiatrist responsible for the care and treatment of the child,” and substitute “child’s responsible consultant psychiatrist”.

On patient advocacy services, when I took over as Minister of State with responsibility for older people in June 2020, I discovered very quickly that there were patient advocacy services only in public and community hospitals and public nursing homes. I moved very quickly to expand patient advocacy services across all public, private and voluntary nursing homes. I am currently expanding this provision to mental health, long-term residential care facilities. Some 10% of residential care facilities have patient advoc…

I move amendment No. 205: In page 95, line 6, after “the” to insert “rights and”. Amendment No. 205 is a technical amendment to include protection of a person’s rights, along with their interests, in the functions of the commission. I do not intend to support amendment No. 206 as this amendment duplicates what is already in the Bill elsewhere. Section 177 of the Bill provides for the commission to make codes of practice regarding various matters under the Bill, including the preparation and issuing of a code of pra…

I thank all the Deputies for their comments. The reason amendment No. 206 is not being accepted is because this amendment duplicates what is already in the Bill. There are 223 sections in the Bill. It is huge and very complex. There is a lot in it and it is hard to take every bit of it in, but that amendment is a duplication. That is the only reason why it is not being accepted. I do not disagree with the Deputies regarding the upper age for CAMHS. Some of the Deputies might know Mark Smyth, who was head of the Psy…

Sorry to cut across the Deputy. Those are not accepted. It is because their referrals are not accepted.

I have a couple of points to make as I have spoken extensively on the waiting lists. It is important to acknowledge, however, that last year there were 233,000 appointments allocated by CAMHS and approximately 8% or 9% were not attended for a myriad of reasons. For some, they may have aged out and, for others, they may have gone privately, and there may be other reasons they did not attend. By the end of April of this year, CAMHS had already offered 85,000 appointments.

In fairness, 97% of all urgent referrals to CAMHS were responded to within three days up to April 2025, and they are the latest figures I have received. What often happens is children might present to CAMHS and whatever diagnosis they have may not be as severe as others and they become the long waiters. That is the area I am not happy about. The other thing is the consultant psychiatrist and clinicians in the multidisciplinary team determine whether the child meets the criteria. I do not have a clinician's backgrou…

Some teams accept more referrals while others accept less. All I can say on the floor of the Dáil is my commitment to trying to provide additional funding. We have 81 teams. We have relocated many CAMHS teams into good primary care centres, which have good locations, yet we are still seeing the waiting lists grow. We have 1.2 million young people in the country, whereas five years ago, we had 900,000. This is a 25% increase. We are seeing more presentations since Covid. We are seeing an exponential growth in the nu…

I move amendment No. 207: In page 96, line 36, to delete "shall" and substitute "may".

I move amendment No. 208: In page 104, line 15, to delete "section 48" and substitute "section 10".

I move amendment No. 209: In page 105, line 3, to delete “such members of the staff of the Commission” and substitute “such members of the staff of the Commission and the Chief Executive Officer”.

I move amendment No. 210: In page 105, line 7, to delete “former members of the staff of the Commission” and substitute “former members of the staff of the Commission and former Chief Executive Officers”.

The expert group review of the Mental Health Act did not recommend that a professional other than a consultant psychiatrist could become the inspector of mental health services. In every registered acute mental health centre, the clinical director is a consultant psychiatrist. Furthermore, the only profession that can make an admission or renewal order is a consultant psychiatrist. As such, it would appear rational to continue to limit the role of chief inspector to the consultant psychiatrist profession. However, …

I move amendment No. 214: In page 113, line 26, to delete “3 years,” and substitute “3 years, and”.

I move amendment No. 215: In page 113, line 28, to delete “5 years, and” and substitute “5 years,”.

I move amendment No. 216: In page 113, to delete lines 29 and 30.

I move amendment No. 217: In page 113, to delete lines 32 to 37.

I move amendment No. 218: In page 113, line 38, to delete “ section 135 ,” and substitute “ section 135 , and”.

I move amendment No. 219: In page 113, to delete line 39.

I move amendment No. 220: In page 114, between lines 2 and 3, to insert the following: “(2) In relation to a registered community mental health service, the Chief Inspector shall visit and inspect a representative number of those services within the registration period, taking into account— (a) a geographic area of registration ensuring a balanced representation of inspection across that area, (b) the level of compliance with this Act or any regulations made thereunder of— (i) a registered community mental health s…