Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)

In fairness, a considerable number of people were worried. As the Minister of State said, they were sufficiently worried to come to her on that basis. It was said to me that we could be looking at a case where someone was involuntarily admitted and then they could not get treatment. I still have a fear when we are talking about making applications to courts and to the High Court. We all know that there are issues with the Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2 that need to be looked at, particularly when we start putting things through a court system this is experiencing a logjam. That is necessary.

What the Minister of State has spoken to regarding these amendments all sounds positive. I am not sure that we are quite where we need be on this. As the Minister of State knows, a selling job needs to be done. A piece of work needs to be done to interaction with stakeholders, particularly those stakeholders who had an issue with this. I ask that this would happen. Beyond that, people could be offered an explanation as how this will work. I get that we are talking about a small cohort of people who could be involuntarily admitted and then because of their situation and circumstances - and I have it seen it - down to paranoia or whatever else, they are not going to take treatment. In some cases, they will refuse food and all of the rest of it. We are talking about people who are in a very distressed circumstance. We need to ensure that all of the protections are there from a human rights point of view. That goes without saying. We need to make sure this is operational. That was the fear of those who work in mental health services. There has been a good piece of work done here. It was a necessary piece of work. More needs to be done. What are the Minister of State's plans for engagement with those stakeholders? I ask that if there are further pieces needed that we could have that done, I would say on Report Stage but it looks like this Stage is going to go on for a wee while longer.

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