Ms Fiona Coyle:

I am happy to jump in first and then give Mr. Ryan an opportunity. I thank the Deputy for raising this very important matter around language. It is one of the other areas that we have been advocating for further reform in. While we support the replacement of the term "mental disorder", we do not believe the term "mental illness" should be used in its place. The reasoning behind this is that it is quite medicalised language and it does not adequately reflect the full diversity of mental health difficulties and their causes and the combination of origins and contributory factors. The impact of mental health difficulties for those who experience them are unique to each individual. For some, medical diagnosis and focus will be helpful and useful but this is not the case for everyone. The use of medicalised terminology can be quite exclusionary and such terminology can have an unintended effect of narrowing how mental health difficulties are understood and responded to and the Deputy raised some of those points. We recommend aligning this legislation with the policy sharing division, which uses the term "mental health difficulties" or, indeed, with the UNCRPD language, which refers to "psychosocial disabilities". "Psychosocial disabilities", as a term, is not widely used in Ireland, which is why we put both forward. We recognise that the language is something that the drafters should further focus attention on. Does Mr. Ryan have anything he would like to add?