Dr. Karen McAuley:

I will take that question as well but Mr. Castillo Goncalves might wish to elaborate further.

In our observations submitted to the committee before Christmas we referenced a fundamental point made by the Law Reform Commission when it was looking at the area of children and consent to medical treatment a number of years ago. This is that for admission to be voluntary there has to be an element of voluntarism involved. If you are a child and for whatever reason you have concerns or reservations and do not wish to be admitted, for example, your admission, in plain English, is not voluntary. There is no voluntary element to it. This is not to critique parents in any way, but the idea that we provide in law that a child who expresses a wish not to be admitted would be admitted as a voluntary person solely on the basis of the consent of his or her parent is wrong. That is why we are calling for a third category to be extended to under-16s. That is an intermediate person. That allows for a child to be admitted on the basis of parental consent but it removes this illusion that it is voluntary on the child's part.