Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 5 April 2022

Joint Committee On Health

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

Ms Nicola Byrne:

Eleanor Roosevelt said:

Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home – so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the individual person...

I am looking forward to a culture shift where we talk about and live person-centred care. The content of the legislation and the job members have are a huge responsibility.

We ask members to bear in mind the people at the end of it who will experience this, and that could be me or members. It is important to keep it at that level, to realise there is not an otherness to this opportunity. This is about us, how we are viewed and how we experience our world.