Mental health legislation - Transparency essential to end injustice

FOR decades, the detention of patients in psychiatric hospitals against their will has been one of the more chilling injustices of Ireland’s mental health scandal.

In a welcome, if long overdue move to put right this grave wrong, the State has at long last introduced new legislation to bring mental health out of the dark ages.

The measures include setting up independent review panels with the aim of reviewing the status of involuntarily detained patients. Acting as mental health tribunals, the newly established review panels were designed to review around 250 cases a month.