Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses very much for all the work they have done and I wish them luck in the future. I hope they will have more powers as well.

There are a lot of issues being covered, but I will focus on the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act. What rights do long-term patients in an approved centre have if a centre is due to be closed and they do not want to leave it because they consider it their home, in spite of the recommendations to shut the centre?

How frustrated do the witnesses get if they commission a full report on a centre and two years later they go back to do another report on the same building and make the same recommendations, or perhaps more, and they have not been carried out and the same could happen a third time? They find that none of their recommendations have been addressed. After three or four reports over four to eight years, despite all the recommendations being approved, nothing is done and then the commission is faced with the scenario of shutting the centre because it is not fit for purpose. If the recommendations of previous reports had been acted on, the premises should be up to standard. How does the commission get around that?

My main concern is that we have a centre that is due to close. I refer to the Owenacurra centre. It has 19 long-term patients. It also caters for short-term stays and it has mental health day services. Three or four reports have been done by the Mental Health Commission and recommendations have been made on the building over a period of years. I have read all the reports and seen all the recommendations and yet nothing was done to the centre. Now we have a scenario where we are talking about people's rights. Some people are happy to move on. Dr. Finnerty referred to the fact that moving a patient from one centre to another does not always mean it is a better or more appropriate place. The current scenario is that patients in the centre do not want to go anywhere. I have spoken to many of them. One patient said to me that it is his forever home. He thought he was going to die there. Where is the protection for the patients? What power does the commission or this committee have to ensure the safety of each and every one of these patients, but also that they have the capacity to make up their own mind and make the decision? If the decision is to remain in the centre where they are now, can the HSE force people to move to another place? I suspect that the new centre will be less appropriate because some of them are locked down for 12 hours and others are in very sparse areas while the current centre is integrated into the town and the patients are likewise integrated. It is a rights issue. I know there is a lot in it, but I would welcome if the witnesses could help me in this regard because it is a problem that has arisen in recent weeks and it is very hard to get answers for patients.