Mr. James Kelly:

Reference was made to governance and the board, which is dealt with in Part 3 of the legislation. What we were trying to do with that was to bring the governance of the commission and the related corporate aspects in line with good governance in other public sector bodies. A lot of improvements have been made over the last 20 years and we tried to mirror those in that Part. This would include protected disclosures. I do not know if we have actually included an explicit reference to them but anyone making a protected disclosure relating to a public sector body would be protected. Staff in the commission would be protected as would staff in the HSE or a Department. That said, we can look at this further if the committee believes it is something that requires more thought in the context of the final Bill.

Electroconvulsive therapy or ECT has been retained in the Act and we have updated the measures related to it. My understanding is that ECT in 2021 is not the ECT that we know from popular culture, as in the film "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest". It has developed hugely in the intervening 50 years and is now regarded as quite an effective treatment for certain types of mental health conditions. We are retaining it because it does have some clinical value. The committee could invite clinicians or representative bodies for health professionals who would be more qualified to speak on this but it is my understanding that ECT is an effective treatment and that is why we have decided to retain it.