I thank the Minister of State and her staff for coming to the House. She has given this a lot of time and I want to acknowledge that. It is important. I received a letter and communication from An Cathaoirleach informing me with regret that amendments Nos. 314a and 314b have been disallowed on account of a potential cost to the Exchequer. I will not get into the process of that today other than to say it is disappointing. It highlights significantly what is the importance of the commission. Section 128 states that …

I thank the Minister of State for that and for taking the initiative to refer the amendments to the Mental Health Commission. I take it from that she is supportive of the sentiment.

Therefore, is it not an awful pity we cannot find some creative, imaginative way through the parliamentary process and legislation to put in what I put forward, which the Minister of State supports? I believe it is a good idea and I have spoken to others who believe it is a good idea. Is it not an awful shame that here we are, making primary legislation in the Seanad, the Upper House, and somehow we are currently precluded from making that proposal? That shows a weakness and anomaly in the parliamentary process. I …

I thank the Minister of State for her frankness and her honesty. She is not misleading anybody. I take it that there will not be any further discussion on this.

Nor on the next Stage.

That will be a consideration for me in terms of support for the Bill. I want to flag that.

I want to follow on from what Senator Black was saying. This was a very important amendment and this is a very important section. It deals with the regulations and registration, operation and management of mental health services. The section deals with a very important area. We have talked about complaints but there are also observations and investigations into the non-compliance rate. It will take a few minutes for me to illustrate my point. If we look at the Mental Health Commission report, I came in here today w…

I thank the Minister of State for her comments. There is no problem with that and these reports are up. I acknowledge the amazing work of the Mental Health Commission. I have learned more than anyone from the Mental Health Commission in the last four to six weeks, as I did from Mental Health Reform and other organisations. I want to acknowledge that too. The point is some of these are classified as non-compliant and others relate to critical on the second inspection. Each of those seven was covered. We are talking …

I heard the Minister of State getting up early in the morning and having a great brief. That is great. Leo was the last person who talked about getting up early in the morning. My next comment will not be a reference to the Minister of State. Rather, this is in a lighter mode because we do laugh, smile and get on with each other. I would not like anyone to think that all of us do not. I said to Leo that it was one thing getting up early in the morning, but it was about staying up all day. He took the point. I am no…

I thank the Minister of State and her officials who have also had to listen to us. We have had to talk but they have had to listen. I particularly thank the people in the audience who came, some of whom followed every bit of this debate and others who tuned in. Clearly, from the interactions of our emails and telephone calls, people were listening and were involved. That is very important. I want to single out the Leas-Chathaoirleach, Senator Byrne. As the Minister of State said, she certainly gave it impetus and d…

I thank our sound people. More importantly, people forget our stenographers and our recorders who record the proceedings which we rely on so much. I will certainly be looking at them in a few days time and seeing what we did and did not say or what the Minister of State said. They give a full and accurate account. I particularly ask the note takers and stenographers, and the person representing them here now, to take that back to the team. They do an amazing job and it helps. It puts on the archive and on the recor…

Hear, hear.

This morning it has been reported in the media that the Government is considering issuing a State apology, to be given by the Taoiseach, to the victims of industrial and reformatory schools. The Leader will recall that we had much debate on this matter in this House. He will recall that I proposed a number of amendments and one of them was that this group would receive the enhanced medical card. He will also recall and fully know the response by the Government and the Government Senators which meant my amendment wa…

This is a very simple amendment. If it is okay, perhaps we will hear what the Minister of State has to say before commenting further.

This is Senator O'Reilly's amendment, and I am only seconding it, but I share her concerns. The Minister of State represents a rural and urban constituency. He will know about the floods and storm in the past few days. There were many people relying on solid fuel fires to light and heat their homes and to congregate around those simple homestead fires. My understanding of what Senator O'Reilly is talking about is the need for greater clarity. We need absolute clarity in relation to it. Let us keep this simple. This…

I welcome the Minister and his official to the Seanad and acknowledge the important work his fellow Ministers and Ministers of State and the departmental staff have done. I have no doubt an enormous amount of work went into it and it is an amazing achievement for the Minister. It is also an amazing political achievement. There were many critics and I sat and listened to many of them, and to other people who came to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture and Food, of which a number of us here are members too.…

I will be brief because, in fairness, taking an overall assessment of all our work to date, we have covered off on a lot of stuff, and once we move away from this section, the sections up to section 91 all deal with children. I have some thoughts and I want to share them with the Minister of State rather than adding additional amendments to today's proceedings. It is vital that the children in involuntary care or subject to restrictive practice have access to an independent complaints mechanism. I have said that. T…

I thank the Minister of State. I hear what she says. She has set out her stall on the record of the House and she is confident. Inspections are difficult. We will talk about that later in terms of access by the Mental Health Commission to facilities and resources. In some cases we are talking about once every three years. I accept it still has the right to go in. I am familiar with that too. I will leave it at that. I hear what the Minister of State says. I ask her to keep an open book on it. The measure should be …

I thank the Minister of State.

We are dealing with a large block of amendments. I draw the Minister of State's attention to amendment No. 234 to section 70. We are dealing predominantly with children here and this is specifically to do with the discharge of involuntarily admitted children. This is a ministerial amendment and what drew my attention to it was-----