Mr. Tony O'Brien:

Sure. Let me step back and put that into its full context and then I will deal with the specific point raised by the Deputy. This was a total recitation of all the legal provisions that relate to a situation where a person refuses to leave a hospital bed. This is one line in a very long memorandum that deals with everything that should be done to facilitate the patient in moving to a right location. This is not about patients who do not have some place to move on to such as a nursing home place or supported discharge. This is about patients - and it is very rare - who, in the face of every possible thing having been done and provided, still refuse to move on. The reference to minimum force was not a suggestion that minimum force should be used. It was a reference to what the law provides for and what it was saying that people need to be very careful in these situations. There is reference to the necessity to protect people's interests, for example, by a referral to the appropriate courts to determine a situation if that should arise. To be clear, there has never been - and never will be - a direction that people should be using force, minimum or otherwise. It was a valid, comprehensive explanation of what the total legal position was. The use of the term "minimum force" is generally intended as dissuasion to the usual force. This is not about asking our staff to use physical force to remove patients from wards. It may well be the case, however, and it has been the case - and I suspect that in the future it will be the case - that there may be circumstances where the HSE or the individual hospital may have to seek the assistance of the courts to persuade an individual, in very rare circumstances and in the face of every possible assistance having already been provided in regard to alternative placement, to vacate a hospital bed to which they have developed an attachment but not a need, and where there is another patient who needs that bed. I hope I have clarified it for the committee.