Tribunal delay is 'thwarting' will of the Oireachtas

Psychiatrists row: The secretary general of the Department of Health has claimed that consultant psychiatrists are thwarting the will of the Oireachtas in delaying the establishment of mental health tribunals.

Talks are to take place tomorrow between health service management and consultant psychiatrists in an attempt to resolve the row concerning the establishment of the tribunals.

The tribunals will review the cases of people detained involuntarily in psychiatric hospitals.However, organisations representing consultant psychiatrists have advised their members not to apply for posts on the new bodies as part of a dispute over staffing support.

It is understood that the dispute now centres on how many additional consultants will be appointed by the Government to relieve psychiatrists who are working on issues relating to the tribunals.

The medical bodies are insisting that these new posts must be in addition to positions that would have been created anyway as part of regular development of services.

Talks on the issue are scheduled to take place between the medical bodies and health service management under the National Joint Council of the health service.

The department has warned that it may withhold a 1.5 per cent pay rise due to the State's 290 consultant psychiatrists next month under the Sustaining Progress national agreement, if they continue to oppose recruitment to the mental health tribunals.

In a letter to the Irish Hospital Consultants Association earlier this month, secretary general of the department, Michael Scanlan, said he would make no apology for signalling his concerns about the stance being adopted by it and the Irish Medical Organisation in relation to the implementation of the Mental Health Act 2001, and the establishment of the mental health tribunals.

"The 2001 Act addresses shortcomings in our domestic legislation as compared with international law in this area and it is completely unacceptable, in my view, that the will of the Oireachtas is being thwarted in this fashion."

He said that a central tenet of the Sustaining Progress agreement was the provision of improved services as part of the change and modernisation agenda for the health sector.

"I cannot think of a better example of where a service to a particularly vulnerable group of patients would be improved and enhanced through the establishment of the mental health tribunals," Mr Scanlan said.

More than 3,000 psychiatric patients are involuntarily detained in hospitals in this country each year.

Ireland has one of the highest rates of involuntary detention in Europe - a concern for human rights campaigners and patient support groups.