Call for changes to bill on mentally impaired adults

ONE of the country’s foremost experts on mental health has called on the Government to make changes to new legislation designed to improve protection of adults with impaired decision-making capacity.

Professor Harry Kennedy, who is chair of the Human Rights, Ethics and Law Committee of the College of Psychiatry in Ireland (CPI), expressed concern that the Mental Capacity and Guardianship Bill 2008 was more concerned with the legal process rather than the patient’s clinical needs.

“If you leave things exclusively to lawyers then they very rightly and very properly put liberty first. But there are other considerations. A doctor may put dignity first,” he said.