Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)

It was ruled out of order for the money rule. I find that really disappointing. My concern is that because it has happened in the past, it could happen again. I appreciate that the Minister of State has done an awful lot of work on it over the last while. I wonder what safeguards we could have in place. If there is no appropriate facility where a child can access the appropriate mental health care, it is not a failure in legislation; it is a failure in service provision. That is where the failure comes in. This legislation is papering over the cracks of the service provision that is there when it comes to appropriate mental health care. I would like to know what safeguards will be in place to stop what was happening in the past when young people were in adult psychiatric facilities, sometimes for weeks on end.

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