Ms Orla Keane:

Absolutely. Our annual report will be published shortly. Last year, 16% of the applications were made by authorised officers. When the operative parts of the Mental Health Act commenced in 2006, the aim was that this figure would be 80%. A total of 32% of applications are made by the Garda and 21% are by families. We are very anxious that the applications are being left to families and it can really damage the relationships within families. This is an important issue for us.

Deputy Clarke also asked me to address section 51. We agree with some of our colleagues who have said that people should not be rushing to the High Court. They need to get on with the care and treatment job. If somebody has been treated for, say, two periods of 21 days and that person has capacity and is still refusing, the commission also has a role under the Assisted (Decision-Making) Capacity Act. These roles do not align because we are not respecting the person's right to refuse treatment or their decision supporter's right to refuse treatment. We are not saying this would be on day one. We take it that these applications would not be made until well into the person's treatment and that they should not be made on day one. We hope there will be very few of these applications, if any. Even if the provision remains, what we are saying is that the basis for any such applications should be limited. We must remember that the person is in the approved centre and the person will be involuntarily detained. In our view, the current threshold in the Bill is too low and it needs to be raised with regard to there being an immediate risk to the life of the person. Our core issue is that, after those two periods of 21 days, if the person does have the capacity and the person is still not consenting, there needs to be some recognition that this view is respected.

Deputy Clarke also raised an issue on adults-----