Mr. John Farrelly:

Then you would have to ask about the rights in terms of transparency of vindicating your rights. We do not know what is happening there.

The Senator asked what the checks and balances are. We do not know what they are. We have met the Garda on a number of occasions. For example, if you are brought into a station for drunk-driving, you have more rights than a person who is picked up based on the view of a garda that he or she has a mental disorder. You would have to question the capability of a garda to make that assumption, so it is a questionable area. We have raised it with the Garda and the Department of Justice and we think there should be a process in place to vindicate people's rights so at the very least they get the same rights as a drunk-driver and it is time-limited to a degree.

On training, we have met with the Garda. Again, we did not get a lot of information. We got some information but it seems that the Garda does a lot of its own internal training. It trains its own people. This year we have organised with the HSE that we are going to do a full day with gardaí at a senior level and different people in the health services. However, on training the new gardaí, you would think that needs to come from professionals outside the Garda in both the legal and mental health areas.

I will hand over to Dr. Finnerty.