Professor Brendan Kelly:

I thank the Deputy for the questions. With regard to the care plans, the Bill included regulations concerning care plans, which gave the Minister power to regulate many matters, including the content of a care plan. We regarded this as an unwarranted intrusion into clinical care at the level of primary legislation. This is an intricate matter agreed between clinicians and persons being treated.

I note one of the ministerial amendments proposed yesterday suggests the Minister would regulate the form as opposed to the content of a care plan. We would regard this as a positive thing but we nevertheless question the need to include such detail in primary legislation, given it is a clinical matter.

Regarding potential training courses, we are not aware of anything in particular being planned for this. Services have always had care plans.

This additional highly rigid regulatory requirement is a new thing. It is not necessarily in people's interest to duplicate everything from clinical notes into care plans of a particular kind because care plans have always existed in any case.

These additional measures introduce considerable complexity and additional considerations into the patient-doctor relationship. Legislation can only do so much for such an interpersonal thing. Care is delivered to humans by humans and primary legislation gets very deep into what are very interpersonal areas for people in acute distress.

I return briefly to the point about the number of involuntary admissions. I have the figures in front of me. In 2023, there were 2,566 involuntary admissions in Ireland and 15,500 voluntary admissions. Most involuntary admissions last for less than one month. The majority are discharged within a month and that is because we can currently treat people promptly and effectively. If it would be a great pity if that was no longer possible and detentions were longer as result.