Joan Freeman (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Children's Mental Health Coalition comprises 50 member organisations from a range of backgrounds and sectors. The coalition has previously submitted to the Department of Health - in its review of the Mental Health Act 2001 - that legislation should be enacted to end the practice and that children should only be admitted to such units in exceptional circumstances. Even then, such units must have child appropriate facilities. That is not happening in Ireland as we speak.

The programme for Government introduced in 2011 - some six years ago - contained a commitment to end the practice. In December 2011, the official code of practice relating to admission of children came into effect. The Government has stated that, apart from in exceptional circumstances "no child is to be admitted to the adult unit of a psychiatric hospital". Once again, we have failed our children.

I hope I have clearly highlighted that the intention to end this practice is not recent, However, ending the practice is something we have not succeeded in doing. We have not merely failed to follow through on these promises domestically, we have also failed to fulfil our international obligations. Ireland ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child without reservation on 21 September 1992. The convention aims to improve the lives of all children under the age of 18 through securing necessary changes in Ireland's laws to protect those rights. Article 37(c) of the convention provides that "every child deprived of liberty shall be separated from adults unless it is considered in the child's best interests not to do so". Ireland has repeatedly failed in its obligation to comply with these very basic and fundamental human rights by confining children to adult units. We have seen a fluctuating trend of admissions to adult units in the past ten years. In 2013, there were 91 admissions of children under 18 years of age to adult psychiatry units, comprising 22% of all child admissions. While this number fell marginally to 89 in 2014, it increased once again to 95 in 2015. Despite having ratified the convention, we are not complying with our obligations.