Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)

This amendment is an attempt to ensure we have a holistic means of assessment. We are talking about everything that impacts on mental health issues, including the environmental, the physical and the social. It is about the idea of ensuring we are assessing everything to make sure that we are dealing with all the issues impacting on a person. As Deputy Clarke said, it is then all about ensuring we can put the best framework and best resources in play.

There is no point not saying this in respect of some of the issues we have talked about throughout this entire debate: the fact is we had a scenario where we had huge institutions, and all that was wrong with them, and the promise was that we were going to introduce a community service. That is where we have to put emphasis. In a lot of cases, we should have this community service. In some cases, these are early interventions at a very early stage and, as we all know, early interventions can stop us from needing those very expensive and acute services when people find themselves in real distress. It is an attempt on our behalf to address that. The Minister of State said she gets the idea of what we are attempting with this amendment. Again, we are looking for best practice. At this stage, I just have not seen any arguments why we would not embed this in the legislation at this point as opposed to going to secondary legislation.

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