Delay in reforming the Mental Health Act

Sir, – Ireland’s mental health laws go right back to 2001.

Ten years ago, an expert panel recommended 165 changes to bring these mental health laws up to date.

Eight years ago, the Government started that process but many delays later, allied to promises that change would finally come this year and, lo and behold, we have a further road block.

So what was meant to be the most seismic overhaul of mental health legislation in Ireland has now been pushed out once again.

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In 2021, the heads of the legislation outlined what would be in the Act.

The Bill then went for pre-legislative scrutiny in May 2022.

Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform Paschal Donohoe said at the start of this year that this would be embedded into the summer legislative schedule, and here we are two weeks from the Dáil breaking and still no movement on it.

One would be hopeful that the above will be enacted this year, although I will believe it when I see it.

This can has been kicked down the road so many times that I would have no problem in classifying this imbroglio under the rubric of it being a national scandal.

There are a couple of key parts to this Act which really are very important and would sway someone in whether they would want to access mental health services in Ireland or not.

Part of it is to do with the question regarding the type of treatment that people can get.

There are two types of hospital admission into mental care units in this country: voluntary admission and involuntary admission.

Involuntary admission makes up about 10 per cent of mental health admissions in Ireland.

It’s basically where a doctor orders one to be admitted into a mental health unit.

Those people are more protected than the 90 per cent who are voluntarily admitted.

This could be people who walk in to a mental heath unit and say “I need help” or it could be someone who is incapacitated and basically there is a phrase that is used, “de facto detention”, which means that these patients really don’t have a say in their treatment or they don’t have a say as to whether they should keep receiving treatment or not.

This could deter people from receiving treatment who really need it.

It’s also very disempowering to people who are in treatment.

I find it utterly appalling that once again this can is being kicked down the road and what I find most exasperating is that there are no real signs as to when it will be picked up again.

The Government is good at producing spin and beautifully crafted responses to this emergency.

It’s my contention that we have a breach of human rights here and this to my mind is simply not good enough.

I would like to ask the Government is there some context as to why these important reforms are being continually kicked down the road. –Yours, etc,

JOHN O’BRIEN,

Clinical Psychotherapist,

Clonmel,

Co Tipperary.