THE MENTAL HEALTH Bill which is set to overhaul of Ireland’s mental health laws is not expected to be passed before an election, The Journal understands.
The long-awaited legislation, which has suffered protracted delays for years, would strengthen regulation around people consenting to the type of treatment they receive.
It will also regulate all community Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) which currently fall outside the scope of regulation set out under the 2001 Mental Health Act.
It is close to ten years since an expert group tasked with reviewing the Mental Health Act 2001 recommended 165 changes to the law, but the pace of the new legislation has been painfully slow.
With election speculation rife that polling day will be held on either 29 November or 6 December, the focus at government level is progressing with legislation such as the Finance Bill, which is due to go to committee stage on 5 November.
While coalition leaders had stated that they would like to see other pieces of legislation passed by this Dáil, it is now expected that the Mental Health Bill will not make it through all stages before an election is held.
It was the hope that committee stage for the bill would get underway the week beginning the 4 November but The Journal understands that due to complexity of the bill, amendments will not be completed in time.
A government spokesperson confirmed this evening that the passage of the bill, given the election date timeline, is not possible.
If a general election is called, the bill will fall at the dissolution of the Oireachtas.
The decision to reconstitute the bill will be taken by the next government, whereby the bill will re-enter the legislative process at the stage it reached prior to the dissolution of the previous Oireachtas.
Those in government state that there is a mechanism for the fallen legislation to be revived, stating that as the proposed legislation has cross-party support, there would be no obstacles to this taking place.
At the beginning of this month, Tánaiste Micheál Martin specifically referenced the Mental Health Bill, stating that he wanted to see it passed before an election is held.
“We should complete our work programme and that involves the Finance Bill, the Social Protection Bill, but it also involves the Gambling Bill, the Mental Health Bill, the Planning Bill and the Defamation Bill. We have a tight schedule in the autumn to get that done, but we should get that legislative programme done, do our work, finish our work, and then we can leave it up to the people after that,” said the Tánaiste.
Speaking in Washington DC this month, Taoiseach Simon Harris also told reporters that he wanted to see the progression of the mental health and defamation legislation.
The Defamation Bill is also not expected to be passed before the election is called. The Social Protection Bill and the Gambling Bill were passed last week, along with the hate crime legislation.
It is expected the legislation to allow Oireachtas members to take maternity leave will be passed by all Houses before an election is called.
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