Martin Daly (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail)

When I gave my opening remarks, I wanted to pay tribute to the Mental Health Commission for the brilliant work it does on the reporting and governance of the mental health service, and also to the gardaí. As a rural GP, I and my colleagues have relied on gardaí in situations where we were supposed to have assisted admission teams but they were impossible to get. We were waiting six or seven hours one day in a situation where a man had a gun out a window. A Garda unit and I were there, and that was my day and the gardaí’s day gone. The poor man was ill. In the end, we got the gun off him and I drove him to the hospital. That is the reality on the ground. I pay tribute to gardaí for their role in this. I can understand why they do not want to be authorised officers. The concerning point is that if we do not have a system of authorised officers that is reliable, timely and inaccessible, it will fall back to the gardaí because they are the front-line workers, as well as to the GPs on the ground and other people.

Dr. Keane mentioned sections 49(a), 49(b) and 49(c) and the link to section 12. Will she elaborate on that?