Mark Ward (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)

For too long, members of An Garda Síochána have been the gatekeepers for mental health services. When I speak to gardaí in my constituency, which I do on a regular basis, one of the issues they raise is when people arrive at the station under mental duress and they try to help them. A psychiatrist will sometimes come out to a Garda station and may or may not make a decision as to whether the person needs to be involuntarily detained. More often that not, people are not detained and are sent back out into the community where the gardaí will encounter them at a later time. I welcome the pilot project in Limerick, which witnesses before the health committee spoke about earlier today. It is a good initiative that can curb some of the problems we are discussing. I would like to see it rolled out across the State.

Our amendment makes provision for a code of practice for staff working in registered acute mental health centres, gardaí, HSE authorised personnel, GPs and anybody else involved in the provisions of this section. The development of such a code of practice would be really welcome as it would give guidelines to people - especially gardaí, who are sometimes at a loss - on how to work with persons who are under mental duress. I know some gardaí who have undertaken specific training to help them deal with these types of situations, but such training is not mandatory and is not always made available. I remember the first time I had gardaí taking part in the applied suicide intervention skills training, ASIST, programme I was delivering, which helps people to identify the signs of suicidal feelings. Gardaí do that training on a voluntary basis to get an insight into how people get to the stage where they are under mental health duress. Such engagement is always welcome. A code of practice that sets out guidelines for helping people in that situation should be in place.

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