Letters to the Editor: Mental Health Bill excludes borderline personality disorders
Junior minister Mary Butler has explained that there are guidelines regarding teenagers with anorexia who cannot consent to treatment, but 'she has not yet elaborated regarding other people who have different mental health difficulties'. Picture: iStock
I wish to point out the flaws of the new Mental Health Bill 2024 that minister of state Mary Butler brought to Seanad Ăireann recently.
The first issue I have is the bill allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to consent to mental health treatment. In a sense, it is good when a person is stable and able to make their own decisions, but what guidelines are put in place when people in that specific age group arenât stable? Are they allowed to then make decisions which can be detrimental to someoneâs life?
I understand Ms Butler has explained that there are guidelines in place for 16- and 17-year-olds who have anorexia nervosa who cannot consent to treatment, yet she has not yet elaborated regarding other people who have different mental health difficulties.
The second issue I have with this new bill is continuing the exclusions of personality disorders. Personality disorders are characterised by inflexible, enduring, and disrupting patterns of thinking,
behaving, and relating to others that differ significantly from cultural expectations and cause significant distress or impaired functioning in life including areas such as work or relationships.
The hardest personality disorder to be diagnosed with is borderline personality disorder (BPD).Â
The characteristics of BPD disorder are intense emotional instability, unstable and turbulent relationships, a distorted self-image, impulsivity, and a persistent fear of abandonment. Other common features include chronic feelings of emptiness, stress-related paranoia and/or dissociation, self-harm, and suicidal behaviours. Research has shown approximately 70% of people with BPD will attempt suicide at lease once. About 10% complete the act. This suicide rate is higher than any other psychiatric disorder and the general population.
As someone who has a diagnosis of BPD and who has grown up in the Irish mental health system, I can say the treatment towards BPD from people and healthcare professions is horrifying, the lack of understand when a person attends A&E after a self-harming and or suicide attempt is beyond shocking, but the most terrible thing in all of this is that when a person attends A&E after a self- harm or suicide attempt they are discharged without support or help because of the exclusion of the Mental Health Act 2001 and now the Mental Health Bill 2024.
It is frustrating seeing the red tape of accessing treatment with a diagnosis of BPD, for parents and caregivers they are seeing their loved ones slowly dying right before their eyes, yet canât do anything because of the exclusions of this bill. In the UK, their Mental Health Act includes personality disorders to be detained, they also have specialised units solely for personality disorders, why canât Ireland? The Government wants to protect every citizen in this country but yet they donât protect some of our most vulnerable people.
I compliment your courage in publishing Jack Powerâs excellent article on the destruction of our environment â âShocking indifference to Blackwater disasterâ (Irish Examiner, September 5). Official Ireland wonât be happy as it outlines very clearly the failure of State bodies to monitor and prevent the degradation of our rivers lakes and coastline. A simple solution to the pollution from farm nutrients of our rivers is to insist that every landowner plant a five-metre wide strip of reeds bulrushes or willow along the bank of every river and stream in Ireland. It would filter the nutrients and restore rich biodiverse habitats. It could be done with department of agriculture, food, and the marine regulations and linked to all the farming schemes and herd number allocations to include every farmer.
Why isnât it being done? The excuse that it will take too much land out of food production is obviously not true given the many thousands of good land being taken out of production by solar farms.
There is no excuse not to take immediate action. We owe it to future generations.
Israeli prime minister Netanyahuâs address to the 80th UN General Assembly should never have been allowed. The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Mr Netanyahu on November, 21, 2024 citing allegations of crimes against humanity. The Genocide Convention is a United Nations treaty and is customary international law. Its provisions should apply to all UN member states and to the UN organisation itself.
Since the US government failed to arrest Mr Netanyahu, then the UN Secretary General AntĂłnio Guterres should have instructed the security staff at the UN headquarters to arrest Mr Netanyahu. The United Nations, its senior officials, and all its UN member states have failed so far in their duty to protect the Palestinian people. Far too many have been actively complicit, especially US president Trump.
On September 27, Taoiseach MicheĂĄl Martin, while in New York to address the UN General Assembly, said he would have âno issue withâ Donald Trump addressing the Oireachtas next year.Â
We do not yet know whether Mr Trump is being investigated for breaches of the Genocide Convention.Â
In the past, the ICC has issued secret arrest warrants for some suspected war criminals. On September 29, Mr Trump, accompanied by Mr Netanyahu, referred to the likelihood that former British prime minister Tony Blair would play an important role in the peace process in Gaza. The type of peace that Blair and others brought to Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere cost millions of lives.
Inviting Mr Trump to address the Oireachtas would be an insult to all Irish citizens. It would be a far greater insult to all the Palestinian people, and especially to the tens of thousands of Palestinian children who have died, many of them killed by US bombs.
As Henry Ford once quipped in relation to the Model T Ford, âyou can have any colour as long as itâs blackâ. Thatâs how the presidential race looks to the casual observer. If the two main government parties were even divided by some ideological difference there might be a degree of choice but over the last two decades the Green and the Blue merged to become Turquoise. Both party candidates are already unsurprisingly spouting very similar lines on war, Ukraine, and other issues of interest to the government on the campaign trail.
If I were a candidate I would be disturbed by the feeling that I was elected not so much on the basis of my ability or ideas but the lack of any real alternative. I would be disturbed to run in a race where my lead was obtained by crippling the other runners before the starting gun was fired. And the refusal of both parties to allow council members give a nomination to Maria Steen was exactly that. The 18 senators and TDs who gave her a nomination deserve a standing ovation â they are the outliers for democracy in this country that is being treated as a personal fiefdom by many in the political class.
Tadgh McNallyâs excellent article â ââA true Irish republicanâ: Martin Mansergh, former Fianna FĂĄil TD and advisor, dies aged 78â (Irish Examiner, online, September 26) â prompted a recollection of his time in the Seanad.
Myself and Christy Walsh, a relative of Private Joseph Downey, who was executed in December 1915 and one of the 26 Irish-born British soldiers âshot at dawnâ during the First World War, were invited to attend a Seanad debate on March 26, 2006, when a confidential report into the executions of the 26 Irish shot at dawn was to be released by the Irish government to support the Irish Shot at Dawn Campaign effort to achieve pardons for our 26 Irish executed.
During the debate, we were humbled to hear an apology expressed by Mr Mansergh when he said: âI am afraid to say that included a first cousin of my grandmother, a Captain Mansergh, who presided over one of the worst cases, that of Private Downey from Limerick. There is no doubt that there were class factors, national bias, and perhaps religious issues. I can only express the deepest regret to his family, including his great nephew, for the little that it is worth.â
On November 10, 2006, during an interview on the RTĂ TV programme Seoige and OâShea, Christy on behalf of his family reciprocated: âSenator Mansergh, being the man that he is, apologised in the senate for what had been done by a member of his family, so in order to bring this to a dignified conclusion I forgive the people that shot my uncle.â
Martin Mansergh did this State some service. May he rest in peace.
