Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

This amendment is in accordance with legal advice received on the issue of medical consent. The Bill allows the HSE to consent to medical assessment, examination and treatment. It is important that the HSE, when providing special care to a child, has the capacity to consent to medical treatment when it is necessary to do so. However, the effect of this amendment is that the HSE's right to consent does not affect the validity of any consent which could lawfully be made by any other person, such as a parent, a guardian, a person acting in loco parentis or a child in the context of section 3 of the Non-Fatal Offences against the Person Act 1997. The substantive law on consent to treatment remains the same. The only difference is that the HSE will be in a position to consent lawfully in the context of providing special care to a child.