Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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423. To ask the Minister for Health the timeline he is working towards in publishing the new mental health Bill; if it will include provision to expand the functions of the Mental Health Commission to include the registration, regulation and inspection of community CAMHS services as urgently recommended by the Mental Health Commission in July 2023; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [30512/24]

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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I firmly support the regulation of all mental health services, including community CAMHS, and I have been progressing priority legislation to underpin this regulation.

The Government recognises the importance of ensuring all mental health services, both inpatient and community, and both adult and child and adolescent, are fully registered, regulated, and inspected by the Mental Health Commission in its role as the independent regulator of mental health services.

The expansion of the Mental Health Commission’s role into regulating all community mental health services, including community CAMHS, is being addressed in the forthcoming Mental Health Bill. This new Bill is a complex and lengthy piece of legislation. It will provide the necessary legal underpinning to ensure that the Mental Health Commission can regulate all community services. Additionally, the Bill will overhaul the involuntary admission and detention process, modernise provisions related to consent to treatment, provide enhanced safeguards for people accessing inpatient treatment, and provide a new, discrete Part that relates exclusively to the care and treatment of children and young people.

The Mental Health Bill is currently undergoing quality assurance by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel and consultation with other key Government Departments is underway.

The Bill will be submitted for approval by Cabinet this month and be introduced to the Oireachtas immediately upon its return after the summer recess.