This is a very simple amendment. If it is okay, perhaps we will hear what the Minister of State has to say before commenting further.

This is Senator O'Reilly's amendment, and I am only seconding it, but I share her concerns. The Minister of State represents a rural and urban constituency. He will know about the floods and storm in the past few days. There were many people relying on solid fuel fires to light and heat their homes and to congregate around those simple homestead fires. My understanding of what Senator O'Reilly is talking about is the need for greater clarity. We need absolute clarity in relation to it. Let us keep this simple. This…

I welcome the Minister and his official to the Seanad and acknowledge the important work his fellow Ministers and Ministers of State and the departmental staff have done. I have no doubt an enormous amount of work went into it and it is an amazing achievement for the Minister. It is also an amazing political achievement. There were many critics and I sat and listened to many of them, and to other people who came to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Agriculture and Food, of which a number of us here are members too.…

I will be brief because, in fairness, taking an overall assessment of all our work to date, we have covered off on a lot of stuff, and once we move away from this section, the sections up to section 91 all deal with children. I have some thoughts and I want to share them with the Minister of State rather than adding additional amendments to today's proceedings. It is vital that the children in involuntary care or subject to restrictive practice have access to an independent complaints mechanism. I have said that. T…

I thank the Minister of State. I hear what she says. She has set out her stall on the record of the House and she is confident. Inspections are difficult. We will talk about that later in terms of access by the Mental Health Commission to facilities and resources. In some cases we are talking about once every three years. I accept it still has the right to go in. I am familiar with that too. I will leave it at that. I hear what the Minister of State says. I ask her to keep an open book on it. The measure should be …

I thank the Minister of State.

We are dealing with a large block of amendments. I draw the Minister of State's attention to amendment No. 234 to section 70. We are dealing predominantly with children here and this is specifically to do with the discharge of involuntarily admitted children. This is a ministerial amendment and what drew my attention to it was-----

Yes, I am talking about amendment No. 234, which is on page 29 in the list of amendments. It relates to the section dealing with the discharge of involuntarily admitted children. We are talking about the role of a parent, guardian or representative of a child, there being various degrees of involvement depending on sets of circumstances. I note the Minister of State's comment that in drawing up many of these amendments, she engaged extensively with the Department of children. The amendment refers to "[providing] th…

I am talking about amendment No. 234, which is in the group we are currently discussing.

Yes, amendment No. 234 is on that list.

Amendment No. 234 is in that group but way down the list.

That would never be the case. Amendment No. 234 is in that group. I am sorry for the confusion.

I thank the Minister of State for clarifying some of the points I raised. My concern is really about the importance of the care plan that is to be prepared, which she has acknowledged and is in her amendment. Ensuring all the stakeholders involved in children's care are engaged with the plan is important. That might be their social worker or advocate because, in many cases, the parent or guardian does not enjoy a good, healthy relationship with the child, or vice versa , because there is so much historical trauma o…

Is the Minister of State generally happy with the amendment? I do not want to get into specifics, but did the Minister of State took on the ombudsman's concerns? He has issues with children being treated in adult facilities but is the Minister of State happy that he got a good hearing?

I do not doubt that. Is the Minister of State happy that she has endeavoured to incorporate the ombudsman's concerns into this Bill?

I share some concerns. The point Senator Ryan made on clarity is a good point in relation to abroad. I do not think this is anecdotal but there are concerns. I was going to raise this later. There will be another relevant section later on but I will talk about it now and I may talk about it again. Can we categorically say that nobody, be they children or adults, is involuntarily or cared for outside the State in terms of mental health? I do not know what the statistics or the arrangements are. We do know in the pas…

I will follow on from that and talk about amendment No. 267, which is also in this grouping and is the request for the application of the transfer of a child. Amendment No. 267 is a Government amendment. I think there may be a case here for the Minister of State to consider. There is some ambiguity about the approved centre and another place. It sounds like a terrible Walt Disney thing; another place, another story. We may have put our finger on something here, and it is about improving legislation. Maybe there is …

That is great. Thank you.

I thank the Minister of State for reading that into the record. It shares some of the echoing concerns we have been talking about. There are those cases and, quite frankly, that is the sad reality of it. There are cases in many spheres where no one has an advocate and the Minister of State has identified that. She has provided a good rationale in support of it and that is important. We have not lost sight of it, and I thank the Minister of State for reading that into the record.

I will be brief because I have mentioned this before. Senator Black has touched on it there again. We should have an independent commission, an independent process and a complaints procedure. We all know what happened in Bloomfield Hospital. I give a call-out to Shauna Bowers, the health correspondent in The Irish Times , who covered this story extensively over the Christmas period on the litany of abuse that took place in the Bloomfield supposed care centre. It is all documented. We have discussed it here with the…