Mary Butler

I move amendment No. 192: In page 91, line 20, to delete “view” and substitute “opinion”.

I move amendment No. 193: In page 91, line 22, to delete “registered acute mental health centre” and substitute “registered proprietor”.

I move amendment No. 194: In page 91, after line 37, to insert the following: “(5) A registered proprietor of a registered acute mental health centre shall notify the Commission, in the form and manner specified by the Commission and within the period specified by the Commission, of each application of a restrictive practice in respect of a child in that registered acute mental health centre.”.

I move amendment No. 195: In page 92, line 39, to delete “sections” and substitute “section”.

I move amendment No. 196: In page 93, line 1, to delete “should” and substitute “shall”.

I move amendment No. 197: In page 93, line 6, after “Where” to insert “, in the opinion of the responsible consultant psychiatrist,”.

I move amendment No. 198: In page 93, line 19, to delete “view” and substitute “opinion”.

I move amendment No. 199: In page 93, line 21, after “guardian” to insert “, the Child and Family Agency”.

I move amendment No. 200: In page 93, lines 25 to 29, to delete all words from and including “(1) Subject to” in line 25 down to an including line 29 and substitute the following: “(1) Subject to subsection (3), the responsible consultant psychiatrist or another member of the multidisciplinary team of a child admitted under section 61, 63 or 65, shall inform the parents, or either of them, or gu…

I move amendment No. 201: In page 93, line 30, to delete “sections” and substitute “section”.

I move amendment No. 202: In page 93, lines 34 and 35, to delete “consultant psychiatrist responsible for the care and treatment of the child,” and substitute “child’s responsible consultant psychiatrist”.

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 provi…

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…

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 disagre…

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…

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 clini…

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…

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 wou…

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