Ms Ber Grogan:

To supplement that, it ties into the other supports available to assist people in making complaints or in accessing the complaints mechanisms. That is around the advocacy piece. Depending on the situation or what difficulty a person is going through at a particular moment, if there is no support network, a fully funded resourced independent advocacy service is needed. There is the Irish Advocacy Network which is a member of our group, and the Patient Advocacy Network and National Advocacy Service. It is about having somewhere that people can go. In the case of an involuntary detention or a crisis moment, a person may not be fully aware of the coercive practices or such things that occur, so having that support system outside is necessary. It is something that was interesting during Covid-19 especially. There was much talk about visiting hospitals or attending hospital appointments with people. What about people in the inpatient facilities at the moment? The youth advocacy programme conducts meetings online. There has also been that piece over the past two years where people in inpatient units have perhaps not had visitors, so how have they been able to access advocates or talk things through?