While a number of important improvements have been made to the Mental Health Bill during the Seanad process, the Government has still failed to address several major human rights and child protection concerns, according to Social Democrats TD Liam Quaide.
Deputy Quaide, who is the party’s spokesperson on mental health, said:
“Seanad scrutiny has improved this Bill in a number of meaningful ways and it is important to acknowledge that.
“The prohibition on Electro Convulsive Therapy (ECT) for children is a significant and welcome safeguard. So too are stronger provisions around capacity assessments; the removal of a provision that would have allowed a consultant psychiatrist to override the treatment refusal of a person with capacity for up to 72 hours pending a High Court decision; and the extension of Mental Health Commission regulation into Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).
“The clearer recognition of the rights of 16 and 17-year-olds to consent to mental health treatment is also an important step forward.
“The fact that a dedicated section on pharmacological restraint has been introduced is very welcome. This was a serious gap in oversight that needed to be addressed.
“But while these are real improvements, the overall picture remains mixed. The Government has still left major safeguards out of the Bill, and in some areas it has failed to meet the human rights standard that this legislation was meant to uphold.
“One of the most troubling examples is the continued failure to place a clear legal prohibition on admitting children to adult mental health units. The minister has pointed to the fact that only five children were admitted to adult units last year, for a total of six days. Any reduction is, of course, welcome.
“But low numbers are not the same as a legal safeguard. If a practice is wrong and resolvable through State investment, it should be prohibited by law, not merely reduced.
“I am also very concerned by the inclusion in the Bill of powers allowing a child to be taken into custody in certain circumstances where a Garda believes they meet part of the criteria for involuntary admission.
“A child in serious distress needs urgent clinical assessment and therapeutic support, not the trauma and stigma of Garda custody. Whatever way this provision is framed, it risks taking children deeper into a coercive and custodial response when what is needed is a health-led approach.
“The Government has also failed to provide a statutory right to independent advocacy, nor has it put in place an independent complaints mechanism for mental health services. Those are not peripheral issues – they are basic safeguards. Without guaranteed independent advocacy and an independent route for complaints, many people will remain reluctant to raise concerns, particularly when they are receiving care in highly vulnerable circumstances.
“That matters all the more given what we have seen in recent times. The deeply troubling concerns raised in relation to Bloomfield Hospital sat alongside repeated high compliance ratings in Mental Health Commission inspections. The North Kerry CAMHS look-back review also showed the consequences of oversight and multidisciplinary safeguard failings. These cases underline why oversight on paper is not enough, and why people need independent means of vindicating their rights.
“There are other longstanding shortcomings too. The Bill still uses the term ‘mental disorder’, which many people with experience of the complexity of mental health difficulties find outdated and pathologising. It still does not clearly require that capacity be assessed before involuntary treatment, except in genuinely exceptional emergency circumstances.
“It is regrettable that a number of Opposition amendments that could have strengthened patient autonomy and legal accountability were not accepted.
“This Bill is an improvement on the 2001 Act in a number of important respects, but this legislation was meant to be a landmark reform grounded in rights, autonomy and dignity.
“It has moved forward, but it has not gone far enough. Progress in some areas does not excuse failure in others. In mental health law, safeguards are not an afterthought but the means by which dignity, autonomy and rights are protected.”
April 17, 2026