Mr. Vivian Geiran:

I fully agree with what Mr. Barry has said, but I will just add to that. In particular, in the context of human rights, which both ourselves and our colleagues have been emphasising, I would refer to something Dr. Martin said earlier about services being a safety net for when everything else fails. That is a very important point for a number of reasons. In Ireland we traditionally had various bodies or services acting as a safety net. We had decades when we had far too many people in psychiatric hospitals and other institutions. When that pendulum swung, as Dr. Martin said, we ended up with the number of people in prison going up, because they ended up as the safety net for when other measures were failing. In this proposed legislation, we have a once-in-a-liftetime chance to make significant strides in the specific area of mental health services. It is not just about legislation.

Going back to Deputy Hourigan's question, the legislative change must be based on principles, values and ethics. They are very important, but even all of those good ingredients will not be enough, we also need to have implementation following on from the legislation. As has been said various times, we must also consider the issues that are being addressed by the legislation and otherwise in a systemic way because, as we have said repeatedly today, it is not just about adult services, child and adolescent services, medical practitioners or social work practitioners. It is not just about this piece of legislation. We need to take into account the UNCRPD and the assisted decision-making legislation. There are significant areas of overlap which make dealing with the issues we are talking about a lot more challenging and complex, but we have to take that on. This is a really positive move to develop the mental health services we have and to put in place modern, evidence-based, trauma-informed and human-rights-led legislation we can build on. As I said earlier and as our colleagues stated, with the best will in the world - and the best legislation - unless it is adequately resourced and structured, we will not derive the benefit.

Everybody in the room ultimately wants this legislation to benefit the people who use the service, their families and wider communities.