We are talking about a very small number of people. An involuntary admission should be the last thing we look for, but there are cases where it is absolutely necessary. I will not get into the details of another case I recall, but we were dealing with somebody who had become a danger to himself and others. He had been well beyond a nuisance for a considerable time and had caused a huge number of issues in the place where he lived. I went to a community meeting and the entire community was livid. Gardaí were there. …

I am not wedded to the amendment but I am wedded to the idea that there is a problem. I assume the Minister of State accepts there is a problem. I am not sure that what is proposed in the Bill will deal with that problem. It is the small number of cases where somebody needs support and a mental health practitioner will not sign, as the practitioner is not allowed, and the Garda cannot get a GP to sign. I mentioned a code of practice, guidelines and all the rest. Sometimes, there is a need for that. Cases have been …

I accept a considerable amount of what the Minister of State said. There is a significant issue in terms of getting a certain cohort committed in the first place. What will be the solution? Others and I have been dealing with people who need care and, because they were not making a direct threat to themselves or others, even following an arrest by gardaí who thought they needed to be detained and put in a mental health facility, the GPs were not willing to sign. They believed they could not sign unless there was an…

The Garda.

I take on board what the Minister of State has said. We will put the amendment so we can amend our amendment. The big piece I want out of this is the code of practice, which would be provided to all the necessary stakeholders. Beyond that, I ask the Minister of State to look at the problem I am talking about and having something in the legislation. It could be just the need. That is sufficient at times in legislation, but I have heard too many times that the only way someone can sign this is if a person is threaten…

I do not think there will be disagreement about the Garda request for authorised officers. It is completely logical and makes sense. They will be best suited to delivering and will be utterly au fait with what is involved, which is not always the case. Some of the issues I spoke of earlier relate to the fact that not everyone is au fait with the law and with what is required. That is why I go back to the idea of a code of practice. We all heard about the CAST system or scheme - call it what you will - in Limerick. …

It is probably too early to ask the Minister of State about the timeline, given that we are having a preliminary discussion on the structure. Can she give a general indication? I accept that this all depends on funding. What will the structure look like in comparison with the current structure, the difficulties with which I have spoken about previously? I imagine that other medical practitioners will have to be involved at some point, particularly in the context of involuntary admissions.

This amendment is an attempt to ensure we have a holistic means of assessment. We are talking about everything that impacts on mental health issues, including the environmental, the physical and the social. It is about the idea of ensuring we are assessing everything to make sure that we are dealing with all the issues impacting on a person. As Deputy Clarke said, it is then all about ensuring we can put the best framework and best resources in play. There is no point not saying this in respect of some of the issue…

The Minister of State should be well used to me using flexibility. I decided that I needed to mention the fact we need to put a certain emphasis on community services. That was already mentioned by Deputy Clarke, so I apologise. I did digress. I get that we are dealing with the issue of involuntary admissions, but we were trying to flesh out how to ensure we are talking about something that is holistic. That was the idea around the biopsychosocial. It is about making sure we are taking into account all the aspects …

In fairness, a considerable number of people were worried. As the Minister of State said, they were sufficiently worried to come to her on that basis. It was said to me that we could be looking at a case where someone was involuntarily admitted and then they could not get treatment. I still have a fear when we are talking about making applications to courts and to the High Court. We all know that there are issues with the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act that need to be looked at, particularly when we start …

Is the Minister requesting further time?

I know but I meant this evening.

I do not know how many times I have come in here and spoken about housing. It is almost a single transferable speech although previously I might have said that things were not getting better but now it is very obvious for anyone to see that things are getting a lot worse. I have no doubt that the Minister and his Government colleagues have the same types of cases as those coming to my constituency office and are meeting the same types of people on the street, people who would previously have been able to rent or bu…

------and pushing back because they do not have the facilities and the tools but that would be a far longer conversation.

Will the Minister of State provide an update on the preparation of the business case seeking to establish future State funding to support efficient district heating projects? I have spoken to the Minister of State before about the wider issue of district heating. Stakeholders in the industry say the support scheme for renewable heat, for example, needs to be looked at to make it more fit for purpose to deliver district heating. We have a specific issue with communal heating systems which also needs to be addressed,…

It would be good to have a timeline for when the Minister of State sees that business case being in place. I think we all agree on the necessity of renewables and decarbonisation. We have seen some district heating projects that make complete sense where waste energy, rather than remaining waste, is piped in and used as a means of providing heat. We need as much as possible of this done as soon as possible. The Minister of State talks to the stakeholders, I assume. I would like an update on the interactions with th…

I ask the Minister of State to come back to me in writing on where that is. Obviously it is very positive. We all want to have schemes that are fit for purpose. We want to see we can actually deliver district heating systems at scale. I return to the Achilles' heel that exists with communal heating systems. I spoke to the Minister before about Carlinn Hall and I spoke to the previous Minister many times. He opened this particular housing estate. It has 200 homes and unfortunately the system that was biomass-fed is …

The first time I met the Minister of State was in County Louth when I was a county councillor. Our meeting was about flood relief schemes but unfortunately, on some level, it is the big plans that we still need to see delivered. It goes without saying that a significant amount of County Louth, and of Dundalk where I live, is below sea level. This goes back to land reclamation projects completed a few hundred years ago following visits that were made to Holland by Lord Loden, I believe. The fact is that there are pl…

We all condemn Vladimir Putin's war of aggression on Ukraine and its recent intensification. It has resulted in a considerable loss of civilian life and many reprehensible attacks on civilian infrastructure. It represents the largest land conflict in Europe for nearly 80 years. Progress towards a ceasefire has been extremely slow. We all hope for a peace, but one that is sustainable. What is the Tánaiste's current understanding of the situation?

Obviously, it is incredibly frightening when you are dealing with the reality of underground schools. There is huge desire internationally for peace but the fear is Vladimir Putin is just playing along. The Ukrainian Government obviously has a desire for peace, but I imagine it would have to be on a sustainable basis. It has an appetite for real negotiations. We have seen attacks on energy infrastructure, civilian infrastructure and on the home city of President Zelenskyy, Kryvyi Rih. We all condemn these attacks a…