Professor Brendan Kelly:

I thank the Deputy. The Bill proposes changes to the criteria for admission without consent and to the criteria for treatment without consent. It has been a concern from the start that these criteria are different, creating the possibility, at least in theory, that a person would be admitted without consent on the basis of severe mental illness but would not meet criteria for treatment for that condition. That is a very real concern; it should simply not be possible for someone to be admitted on the basis of severity of mental illness but not treated for it. That does not make sense. I appreciate there are some amendments and that 298 amendments appeared yesterday afternoon. I am aware that these go some of the way towards addressing concerns about that but it remains the case that having separate criteria is not optimal.

It is worth re-emphasising the Deputy's point that Ireland's rate of involuntary admission, that is, sectioning to use another language, is very low by international standards. It is approximately half the rate of England, for example. It is very important, even though the numbers are small - the numbers are large if the person is you - that this needs to be regulated with great care and clarity. Certainly, we would like to see clear consistency between criteria for admission without consent on the basis of mental disorder and treatment for that disorder.