I move amendment No. 337: In page 149, between lines 19 and 20, to insert the following: "5-year sharing the vision funding and implementation strategy 177. (1) The Minister shall, within 12 months of the passing of this Act, publish a five-year funding and implementation strategy for mental health services. (2) The strategy referenced in subsection (1) shall be reviewed annually by the Mental Health Commission. (3) The strategy shall place an emphasis on shifting care to community-based services as and where appro…

I am not in any way, shape or form discrediting the work the Minister of State is doing-----

-----and the work she has done. It is very difficult to go back to my constituency and the likes of Charleville, which has had so many deaths due to suicide in the past two to three years, and sit with the grandparents of the person who has been lost and say we have lots of funding, we just do not have services in the area for people and, unfortunately, the public transport that we have is not up to scratch for them to access the services in the city or Mallow. People often say to me that we have the Mallow primary…

To clarify, the cuts in funding do not relate to the Minister of State’s Department because they relate to the ETB. The further education and training centre is registered and it gives out certificates. However, the first things cut were all the activities not associated with accreditation but related to mental health in the rural community, such as singing, dancing and knitting. Since no certificate was given for these, they were cut. This was the saddest thing to see because many people in the rural community jus…

I move amendment No. 348: In page 153, between lines 7 and 8, to insert the following: “ 181. (1) The Executive shall keep and maintain records for the purposes of— (a) identifying persons to whom mental health services are being provided, (b) identifying those services and the persons providing the services pursuant to this Part, (c) specifying the aggregate needs identified by the services, (d) specifying the number of persons to whom services are not being provided or to whom they are not being provided in full,…

I will not take up much of the Minister of State's time. I know we are all looking to wrap this up. I thank her and her officials, as well as all the Senators for their contributions. This debate has been very respectful. All our debates are usually respectful. I do not think we have ever had one that was not. However, when you are talking about something so sensitive as mental health and people's well-being and mental well-being, it is very important we debate it in a respectful way. We are talking about real peop…

I propose an amendment to the Order of Business, specifically that No. 11 be taken before No. 1 in order to put the Maternity Protection (Child Bereavement) (Amendment) Bill 2026 on the Order Paper. This Bill seeks to amend the Maternity Protection Act 1994 to allow a mother to pause her maternity leave in the event in the death of a child, giving her the flexibility over how and when she takes the leave for such a traumatic loss. While current legislation allows maternity leave to be postponed in cases of serious …

I move: That leave be granted to introduce a Bill entitled an Act to amend the Maternity Protection Act 1994 to provide for postponement of maternity leave in the event of the death of a child of a relevant employee, and to provide for related matters.

Next Tuesday.

I seek clarity on the new sections 77 and 78. We are talking about members of staff of a registered acute mental health centre or a service provider. I ask the Minister of State to clarify what a service provider is. Section 78 deals with the detention of a child in a hospital or other place. I need clarity on this other place. In terms of access, is there a distance from where the family or caregiver is living to this other place? Regarding consent, who gives consent for the child to be in this other place? How is…

I thank the Minister of State. It gave a little bit of clarity, but in terms of the other place, there is an unintended consequence of it at the moment because it leaves it too open to ambiguity. Who is to say that another place is not just some other place down the road? Essentially, the other place can be interpreted as anything you want. As for the service providers, the Minister of State mentioned Nua Healthcare and Barróg Healthcare. Loads of them provide services but who has the clinical oversight of those se…

I move amendment No. 311: In page 112, between lines 4 and 5, to insert the following: “(d) the progress towards and resource requirements for the extension of CAMHS towards a CYMHS for young people up to the age of 25, and the development of youth mental health clinical specialty, (e) the estimated number of whole-time equivalent clinicians to fully and safely staff public mental health services, and (f) the estimated level of new additional funding required to provide full and safe services with timely access to …

This amendment relates to one of the most important areas of mental health, which is the disconnect between legislation, service demand and the actual resources required to deliver safe care. We heard from different organisations on CAMHS and CAMHS services at this morning health committee meeting. I am sure the Minister of State has heard pieces herself. One thing they did not dispute was that there is legislation there. There are plans. That is all well and good. It is the implementation that is taking a long tim…

Yes.

I move amendment No. 312: In page 112, between lines 21 and 22, to insert the following: “(3) The Commission shall within 12 months publish a report on the quality and independence of complaints processes and make recommendations for the strengthening of such processes.”.

I move amendment No. 313: In page 116, line 14, to delete “a consultant psychiatrist” and substitute “a qualified mental health professional”. This amendment proposes a simple but important change, namely, to replace the phrase "a consultant psychiatrist" with "a qualified mental health professional". It is not about downgrading standards but reflecting the modern clinical practice of multidisciplinary care and the reality of the workforce shortages. We all know consultant psychiatrists are in critically short supp…

I move amendment No. 112: In page 62, between lines 31 and 32, to insert the following: “Safeguards for treatment without consent 48. (1) No person shall be administered treatment without their consent unless a formal capacity assessment has been completed and the person has been found to lack the capacity to consent to the treatment in question, in accordance with the provisions of the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015. (2) An exception to subsection (1) shall apply only in circumstances of emergency, w…

I move amendment No. 151: In page 67, line 37, after “applied” to insert “in accordance with section 57 and”. I will speak to both amendments because they are in the same section. Amendment Nos. 151 and 152 deal with who is protected by the safeguards of this legislation and how clearly those safeguards are anchored into law. While they might look like minor drafting changes on paper, in mental health law, language is never minor. Language determines who is covered and protected and whether safeguards apply in prac…

I move amendment No. 152: In page 67, lines 37 and 38, to delete “in the care of” and substitute “present in”.

I move amendment No. 160: In page 71, between lines 23 and 24, to insert the following: “Appropriate environment 61. A child shall not be admitted to a registered acute mental health centre that is not approved for the admission of children.”. We have talked about this extensively at this point so I will make it quick. The work the Minister of State has done has been phenomenal in removing children from adult inpatient treatment centres. We are looking at balance and the Minister of State referred to balance in res…