Professor Matthew Sadlier:

I have said what I said about children and I accept that. The only other thing I will say about children is that they are not one entity. While people will say it is inappropriate to have a child in an adult unit, it is also potentially inappropriate to have a 12-year-old in the same unit as a 17-year-old because they will be at two very different stages of development and two very different stages of maturity. I, and I think our organisation, am not in favour of having hard rules, such as never being able to admit a child. We would not be in favour of that approach. I refer to what happens on the day. We have seen this. I was a clinical director at one point and resigned for reasons relating to overregulation. We had a child in the emergency department for a week. We could not admit that child into the acute adult unit because we were too scared we were going to get given out to and told we were torturing someone and abusing human rights. No bed was available in the child unit. Where is the most suitable place for that child to be? Is it more suitable for a 17-year-old to be in an adult psychiatric unit where an 18-year-old who is six months older is happily admitted? Is it more suitable, instead, for that 17-year-old to be sitting in an emergency department in a side room waiting for a bed to become available in a paediatric unit, from which they will be discharged in six months' time? There are also issues where somebody develops a long-term mental illness like schizophrenia or psychosis in their 16th or 17th year and is going to be with an adult service potentially for a long time, but first has to hit this speed bump of going into a paediatric service for a brief period of time.

While I absolutely agree with the principle of children, especially children with developmental and child-related disorders, not being in adult units, hard rules create bad cases. There should be some flexibility. As I said, if somebody is aged 17 years and nine months and develops a first psychotic episode, in my opinion they are probably better treated in an adult service because the likelihood is that episode will go past their 18th birthday and they are going to have a long-term relationship with an adult service. Why would we put them in that temporary position in the meantime? Professor Kelly will deal with the Senator's question about prison.