Pearse Doherty (Sinn Fein)

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Cathaoirleach as an deis labhairt ar an Bhille tábhachtach seo atá os comhair an tSeanaid anocht agus as an deis tacú leis. Ba mhaith liom comhghairdeas a dhéanamh leis na Seanadóirí ón Pháirtí Glas as ucht an Bille seo a thabhairt chun tosach agus deis a thabhairt dúinn é a phlé. Tá súil agam, ní amháin go bpléifimid é ach ina dhiaidh sin go mbeidh muid in ann bogadh ar aghaidh leis na moltaí atá sa Bhille. I am glad to support the Bill and commend the Senators on bringing it forward.

A few years ago Amnesty International produced an excellent report entitled Mental Health: The Neglected Quarter. Despite the implementation of the Mental Health Act, improvements in care and improving awareness of the reality of mental ill health, the mental health service is still the neglected quarter of the health service as a whole. The quarter of the population who will, at some time in their lives, experience mental health problems is still being served badly.

The Irish Medical News reports this week that lands belonging to St. Mary's Psychiatric Hospital in Castlebar, County Mayo, were secretly sold for more than €1.3 million. So secret was the transaction that the staff believed the land had been given away. It now emerges that the land was sold and that the HSE never applied to the Department of Finance to be allowed to reinvest the proceeds of the sale in psychiatric services, including necessary capital projects. Apparently the money has been lying in the bank since the sale in 2005. This is just one example and I hope the Minister of State will bear it in mind.

The promised reinvestment in mental health services is not occurring to the extent required. There needs to be a spending programme to remediate decades of under-funding, followed by ring-fencing of 12% of the health budget for mental health services, as recommended by the World Health Organisation.

Resources are essential and so are rights. This Bill focuses on particular rights of people receiving treatment for mental illness. Sinn Féin believes there should be a statutory requirement to ensure full compliance with the international human rights standards set out in the United Nations document, Principles for the Protection of Persons with Mental Illness and for the Improvement of Mental Health Care, issued in 1991. There should be legislation to introduce statutory rights to equality and self-determination for people with mental ill health, to ensure empowerment of people with mental health needs, to guarantee a right to participation in decisions affecting them and to advocacy, where necessary. There also should be legislation to introduce a statutory right to timely access to appropriate mental health services.

On the substance of the Bill, I agree with the provision to delete section 58 of the Mental Health Act 2001, which refers to psychosurgery. This is a highly controversial procedure and is widely regarded as medically unsound and a violation of the rights of patients, yet it is provided for in Irish legislation. Clearly, more is needed than the simple deletion of section 58 of the 2001 Act, but that is an issue for another day and one in respect of which the Minister for Health and Children should act.

I support the change to section 59 of the 2001 Act. This would ban the use of electroconvulsive therapy on patients without their consent. It is not acceptable that this procedure, also highly controversial, medically questionable and impinging on patents' rights, should be imposed on patients without their consent and on the say-so of two psychiatrists.

We know that very many people have been damaged by the use of these procedures. They date from a time when people with mental illness were treated like criminals and subjected to incarceration, often in horrific conditions. Care of people with mental illness has been transformed for the better but these procedures remain. It is time to deal with this issue and the Bill addresses that need. I urge the Government side to support this important amending legislation and to support people with mental illness.