Ms Fiona Coyle:

I thank Deputy Bacik for her questions. On the points that I brought up, for a long time, Mental Health Reform has advocated to reform the Mental Health Act to recognise the rights of 16- and 17-year-olds, as is recognised in other parts of our legislation, to inform their own mental healthcare decisions. We welcome that in the current heads of Bill on the reform of the Mental Health Act, it includes the provision to give 16- and 17-year-olds a right over those decisions. However, we query the fact that there is insufficient safeguarding in place for 16- and 17-year-olds and, in particular, the reference to the legislation the committee is scrutinising, which we all know does not have a provision for 16- and 17-year-olds. It is a gap that urgently needs to be addressed. We need to ensure that there is not a deficit in terms of children’s rights. The other relevant point to make in this context is that there is not a national advocacy service in place that supports children and young people when engaging with the mental health services and other services provided by the State. In the absence of that, it is very important that we look at the Bill before the committee in relation to how it can ensure that safeguarding is in place.

It is the same in respect of the points that I raised on the advanced healthcare directives. Again, with regard to the Mental Health Act, we very much welcome the fact that they have really gone further in the drafts and wish to move to ensuring parity of esteem in relation to advanced healthcare directives. However, there needs to be changes made to the Bill in front of the committee to achieve that, and that is actually noted in the notes on the mental healthcare reform Bill. We were very disappointed not to see that in the Bill in front of the committee and we urge it to take those two points on board as recommendations. It urgently needs to be addressed in relation to that other crucial piece of legislation.