Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I also extend a very warm welcome to members of Mental Health Reform and all our visitors this evening in the Gallery for what is a very important debate at the beginning of this month of May, a month of mental health awareness. So many of us are wearing our green ribbons in solidarity and as a mark of a change that is happening in Irish society, albeit gradually, in which the stigma, secrecy and isolation that are very often around mental health and mental ill-health, are starting to lift. We still have considerable work to do to ensure that we get to the destination to which all of us wish to arrive and where we can support positive mental health. We can then genuinely say that not alone that it is okay not to be okay but that if a person is not okay, he or she will be okay because services and processes of support will be available. Sadly, as we have this debate this evening and as all of us know, that is not the case. All of us also accept that the State has a major responsibility now to improve patient rights legislation in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. That convention must be ratified.

I thank Deputy Browne for bringing forward this Bill and facilitating this important debate. As my colleague, Deputy Buckley, stated, we regard the Bill to be a positive improvement on current legislation dealing with involuntary mental health patients and those who are currently voluntary but who are deemed to not have capacity. That said, we must understand that the Bill still falls short of the kind of firm rights-based approach needed to meet the standards of the UN convention. The latter is about upholding the equal rights of all people with a disability and this means protecting against the violation of the liberty or ability of an individual to make decisions for himself or herself by arbitrarily declaring such people to be without capacity.

I hope this Bill progresses to Committee Stage.

The Minister said that given the nature of the changes that must happen to the 2001 legislation, it would make sense for that to happen in a single consolidated Bill. That is a very fair point. In that spirit, too, I wish to point to one area that must be addressed seriously, namely, advocacy. Mental Health Reform has consistently articulated the fact that patients in our mental health facilities and psychiatric units are not enjoying their full human rights. In fact, the organisation goes further and says that it can identify concrete violations of those rights. Many things must happen to remedy that. We cannot rest on our laurels. There is no doubt that resources, investment, cash, staff and facilities are core to that, but so too is the area of advocacy. To have that peer support, the voice, the capacity to be heard and the enablement of arriving at autonomous decisions is powerful. Obviously, advocacy services must be independent and fully resourced. They must also be placed on a statutory footing, so that it is not a matter of chance or of good or bad luck as to whether a citizen or patient has advocacy services. It must be a codified, enforceable legal right for every patient.

When the time comes for us to deliberate more closely and to finalise our proposals, I hope the Minister will give due consideration to that matter. I also hope that we can find cross-party support on this area. All of us accept that our services are deficient, that there must be more investment and that we must radically change our legal framework. We agree on all of that, so let us work hard and speedily to give effect to the matters on which we agree. Arís, I thank Deputy James Browne. I wish everybody well during this month. Let us all wear our green ribbons and fly the flag for an honest, compassionate and respectful conversation in which we look after ourselves and each other.

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