Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 2 November 2021

Joint Committee On Health

General Scheme of the Mental Health (Amendment) Bill 2021: Department of Health

Mr. Seamus Hempenstall:

The numbers have gone down quite significantly. I attended a meeting in Linn Dara about six or eight weeks ago. The number of children that has happened to are significantly down. I cannot remember the exact number. In the vast majority of those cases, which were in single figures, it was only for a night and the majority of the children affected were 17, so they were almost adults anyway. As Mr. Kelly said, it is intended to provide for a last resort. It is not something that anybody really wants to do. The HSE is definitely improving in terms of addressing that.