Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

Senator Henry is not present, but she referred to a number of statutes in Schedule 1, such as the Lunacy Regulation (Ireland) Act 1871 and a number of others which encompassed very degrading references to either prisoners or persons with mental illness. The point was made by Senator Henry that a more useful way to resolve these rather Victorian and dated concepts in the law, since most of them still apply in terms of the application of law in this jurisdiction, would be the establishment of a new Bill to remove these offensive phrases and words. I sincerely thank the Minister of State and his team for providing Members on Second Stage with an excellent dossier——