I thank the Minister of State for that. That is what she is telling us. I take her in good faith and I accept that. Again, I can see the logic. Had we had a little rationale on that a day ago, we might have been able to tease out more issues and work constructively with the Minister of State. I take what she is saying in good faith. Of course, that was drafted and presented to her by the Department of children. She is saying there is no difference or nuance in relation to the care orders. She might just address the…

I wish to clarify the Minister of State's understanding of what a child is. A child is someone aged zero to 18. The Bill proposes to amend this to 16 years of age, therefore 17 and 18-year-olds would be out of this category.

That is what I mean. I am referring to 16- and 17-year-olds. The Department of justice in other legislation defines a 16 or 17-year-old as a child. That is the law. There is legal advice from the Office of the Attorney General and the Office of the Chief State Solicitor on this. There is litigation and trial cases. It is very clear that a 16- or 17-year-old is a child in terms of an offence. What was the advice received by the Minister of State on that? I ask the Minister of State to tell me her understanding of wh…

I will come back to the Minister of State on capacity. We are talking about people who may suffer from acute mental illness. They may have already been in some form of State care. They may not have parents, for that matter. They may or may not have advocates. This relates to advocacy. Who is the guardian or advocate for someone who is very unwell at 16 or 17 years of age? I know the Minister of State has received advice on this and there are concerns. If we accept the amendment, we are stitching this into the legis…

No problem. The Minister of State can take her time.

We have loads of time. This goes back to the issue raised by Senator Ruane. The Minister of State said it does not matter if someone is on the streets or wherever else. That is not to disparage the Minister of State; I do not suggest she was disparaging in her remarks, but it does matter. There is hardly a day I walk around Dublin without meeting 16- and 17-year-olds who are homeless and suffer from problems with addiction and mental health having fallen out of care, including State care. They are vulnerable. I kno…

We do not like cover in this House; we like comfort and reassurance.

I understand exactly what the Minister of State means. That would be helpful to us. It would be helpful because there is, as I said, a crossover with children. We know there are very vulnerable children and there is no dispute that they are children. I am speaking as someone who knows some of these 16- and 17-year-olds. We all have families who have been touched by issues around this. It is very difficult for the guardian, the carer, the person in official care or the parents. These are challenging people and circu…

I ask for some guidance on the timelines involved because any delay in this process has ramifications too. When people are waiting for a capacity assessment, are we talking about 24 hours, 48 hours, ten days or 14 days? That is very significant because those people are held for a longer period and there are human rights issues in that regard. There are a load of other issues too, such as personal integrity, bodily integrity and the mind. It is really important. The timelines are very important.

I wish to understand what the Minister of State understands to be a care order. She said she would come back to it later. This is the next section where we are dealing with care orders. The Minister of State said that when we got to the bit about care orders, we would clarify. It is important that we know her understanding of what a care order is as opposed to that of anyone else.

The Minister of State would like to discuss it later.

I am happy with that.

For clarity, could the Acting Chairperson read out the amendments in the grouping? Are we discussing amendments Nos. 6, 8 and 11 in this group?

The Minister of State's helpful statement leads to more questions. She told us she requested the Mental Health Commission to do qualitative research and this fed into the process. That is enlightening and I thank the Minister of State for it. I ask her to share that research with us because it is important. We all want to enhance the legislation. The Minister of State clearly learned something from that research and fed it into the process, which is great. We, too, would like to have the benefit of that research be…

Yes, there should not be any problem doing so.

That is great. I want to touch on this group of amendments, which calls for regulations. I have learned from the Minister of State, who can tell me I am wrong if I misunderstood her, that she has tasked the Mental Health Commission to come up with draft regulations. That is positive because the commission is the expert in this field. I have learned two things from the Minister of State's response to this series of amendments. First, research has been carried out and a report was produced, although I do not know how…

I raise two issues. First, I thank the Leader's office for arranging and facilitating statements on HIQA in relation to the review of HSE Mid West. I took the time to search how many times this issue was raised in the Seanad. It was raised loads of times. How many parliamentary questions were there in the Dáil? There were many of them. I encourage and hope that we will have good attendance this afternoon. There have been many demands for engagement and for statements from the Minister on this very important subject…

And it is only Thursday.

I welcome the Minister to the House and thank her for giving her time. It is important that when we discuss this that we set the scene, because I am always conscious there are people outside of here looking in who will be looking at the Oireachtas report later on. We know HIQA publishes terms of reference. In a press release issued on 21 August 2024 the authority: "The HIQA has published its terms of reference for an independent statutory review to inform the delivery of safe quality urgent and emergency care in th…

I warmly welcome the Minister of State and thank her for being here. I also thank my colleague, Senator Clonan. What an achievement. How right he was to pursue what he believed was the right thing to do. He is an outstanding advocate for the disability sector. He is an outstanding advocate in this House for many things and I am terribly proud that he is on our benches in the Independent Group in the Seanad. Persistence and his firm belief in what he was doing convinced everyone in this House. There were difficultie…