Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 7 Mar 1961

Vol. 187 No. 1

Mental Treatment (Detention in Approved Institutions) Bill, 1961— Second and Subsequent Stages.

Minister for Health (Mr. MacEntee)

I move that the Bill be read a Second Time.

The purpose of the Bill is to regularise the continued detention of a number of patients who were received into mental institutions as temporary patients.

Chapter III of Part XIV of the Mental Treatment Act, 1945, provides for the reception of temporary patients into mental institutions. The maximum period of detention of such patients is six months, in the first instance, but Section 189 of the Act provides that where the chief medical officer of the institution becomes of opinion that the patient will not have recovered on the expiration of that period, the person in charge may request the Minister to extend the period and where the Minister, by order, so extends the period the patient may be retained in detention in the institution. The Minister may not make an order extending the period of detention by more than six months but, on subsequent requests, he may make further orders, subject to the provision that the aggregate period of detention may not exceed two years. In recent years, requests for extensions of periods of detention number almost 3,000 per year.

As Deputies will appreciate, an application for an extension of the period of detention of a temporary patient cannot be made until it is clear that the patient will not have recovered within the then current authorised period of detention and consequently the application normally does not reach my Department until towards the end of that time. In fact, it was necessary some years ago to ask hospital authorities to make their applications a fortnight before the current expiry date; but, despite this, it frequently happens that applications are received only a few days before the then current period of detention is due to expire. There is thus a deadline to meet in regard to every one of the sixty or so applications, on average, received each week, but notwithstanding this no slip-up occurred until recently.

When an application for an extension is received in my Department, the previous papers in relation to the patient concerned are extracted and associated with the application. The file of documents is then passed to the Inspector, or Assistant Inspector, of Mental Hospitals. He examines the application and the previous papers and, if he is satisfied, recommends the grant of the extension. A draft of an order covering a number of extensions is then prepared. The draft is examined by a senior officer who certifies that he has personally seen the applications for extensions and the necessary certificates from an appropriate medical officer of each of the institutions in which the patients are detained. The draft order, accompanied by the certificate of the senior officer, then comes to me, as Minister, for signature. When the order has been signed the institutions concerned are notified as to the extensions granted, a separate notification being sent in respect of each patient. This procedure worked without hitch for many years.

On 13th December last a young and junior officer absented himself on sick leave. It had been part of his duties to deal with the initial part of the procedure which I have just described, —that is to say, the association of each application with the previous papers relating to the particular patient and their submission to the Inspector, or Assistant Inspector of Mental Hospitals. This is, of course, a simple routine task appropriate to junior staff. The officer to whom I have referred had been carefully trained in the work and the vital importance of dealing with applications immediately had been very strongly impressed on him. When he had been on sick leave for about a week it was found that he had suppressed a number of the applications received by him. In all, a total of 280 applications received in the period October to mid-December were suppressed. Further in an attempt to prevent discovery of his actions, he issued to the mental institutions concerned in all but 22 of these cases notifications that the Minister had approved the proposed extensions. As I have already indicated the number of applications received is high. The number arriving in a particular period, however, can vary considerably and, as the officer suppressed only some of the applications there were enough passing through to prevent the development of suspicion in the Department that anything was wrong. The issue of the irregular notifications to institutions that extensions had been granted also contributed to the delay in the discovery of the misconduct.

I should perhaps say at this stage that of the 280 patients in respect of whom the applications for extension were suppressed, the usual statutory notifications received in the Department indicate that 53 have since been discharged in the normal course. This figure of 53 includes seven of the twenty-two mentioned earlier whose period of extension had not been authorised and in which cases notifications have not been issued to the authorities concerned.

I should say also that the 22 cases in which notifications of the approval of the proposed extensions were not issued occurred in only eight of the mental hospitals. In all the other mental hospitals, the medical superintendents and other staff could have had no information that anything was amiss. In the case of the eight mental hospitals mentioned, inquiries were made by the staffs concerned in relation to the specific patients and they were told that the matter would be looked into but even up to now have not been told that the required orders have not been made.

The officer whose misconduct gave rise to the present difficulties has only recently returned from sick leave and consequently has only recently been in a position to furnish his explanation. This is at the moment being considered.

When these irregularities came to light, the time in which extensions could be granted had expired in respect of most of the applications. This Bill seeks to rectify the position by providing, broadly, that where an application for an extension was duly made, the patient may be continued in detention as if an order had been made extending the period, notwithstanding the fact that no order was actually made. Provision is also made that no damages shall be recoverable by or on behalf of a person in respect of his detention during the period in question.

In asking the House to agree to this measure it is well that I should ask it to view in proper perspective what has happened in relation to the patients involved. As I explained on the Second Reading of the Mental Treatment Bill, 1960, which is now before the House in Committee, in deciding whether or not to grant an extension of the period of detention of a temporary patient, the person who happens, for the time being, to be Minister for Health has to rely on his professional advisers. In view of the number of extensions involved, now running, as I have mentioned, at close to 3,000 a year, they, in turn, have to rely to a very large extent on the recommendation of the senior medical officers of the institutions concerned; for it will be fortuitous that they will know the patient qua patient. Even in the exceptional case where they may remember having seen the patient it will usually have been only once or twice and then for short periods. Very, very rarely can they be in a position from their own knowledge of him to decide whether he should, or should not be detained.

While in practice all applications are carefully considered, invariably the word of the chief medical officer of the institution has to be accepted and the extension granted. So automatic is the procedure that in September last, three months before the events which led up to this Bill first came to light, I had decided that it served no useful purpose and that I should ask the Oireachtas to amend it. I recommended accordingly to the Government in a general memorandum dealing with the amendment of the Mental Treatment Acts and the Government approved the proposal on 18th October and the necessary provision was included, as Section 18, in the Mental Treatment Bill, 1960, which was circulated as the House may remember, to Deputies on 29th November, 1960, while I and my Department were still unaware of the irregularities which, in fact, were occurring at this time. The Section mentioned provides for the transfer from the Minister to the chief medical officer of the institution concerned of the power to extend the period of detention of a temporary patient.

All the suppressed applications have been examined with special care by the Inspector of Mental Hospitals and he is fully satisfied that if the applications had come to him at the proper time he would have recommended the grant of the extensions sought. There is no shadow of doubt, therefore, that the extensions would have been granted if the applications had been dealt with in the normal way.

Notwithstanding the fact that the grant of the extensions sought would have been virtually automatic if they had been dealt with in accordance with the usual procedure, I do not wish to minimise, in any way, the seriousness of the fact that the necessary Ministerial orders were not made. I regard what has happened as most regrettable and most deplorable.

After the initial discovery on 19th December it was necessary to make the fullest enquiry and search of records to ascertain which patients were, in fact, detained in accordance with law and which were being detained irregularly. When that had been done and the facts established, the measures which might be taken to deal with the situation were considered.

I may say that I first considered notifying all the institutions concerned that, through no fault of theirs, particular patients were being irregularly detained and that these should be released immediately without waiting to determine the form of any legislation which might be required. I decided against that course. The patients concerned had been certified by the competent medical authority a short time previously to need further detention for their recovery. In the interim, any who had recovered sufficiently to justify their discharge had, in fact, been discharged. Of the remainder, some would have progressed to the stage where their discharge was imminent and the majority were in need of longer-term detention and treatment. I submit that to have discharged those still undergoing treatment so that they could be readmitted and detained in accordance with law would have had a most disturbing effect on the patients and would have caused unnecessary worry and anxiety to the relatives. I think it was the least humane course that I could have adopted. I therefore rejected it.

The provisions in the present Bill are, in my opinion, the most appropriate to meet the position as it exists.

In asking the House to give the Bill a Second Reading and to allow it to pass through all its Stages today, I should like again to stress four points:—

1. The arrangements which were in force for dealing with applications for extensions were regarded for many years as reasonable by me, by my predecessors and by the senior officers of the Department. They are still regarded as reasonable, subject only to a minor modification, which has since been made.

2. No blame attaches to any medical superintendent or other officer of a mental institution in relation to this matter.

3. No patient was detained whose detention was not justified.

4. No patient has been detained for a day longer than was justified by his condition, or will be so detained.

In these circumstances, I ask the House to give me the Second Reading of the Bill and also the remaining Stages to-day.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

The Minister is asking the House to pass as an urgent measure what amounts to a Bill indemnifying persons concerned with the unauthorised detention of 280 patients over the past six months. The Minister has brought the matter to the notice of the House as an urgent measure and, of course, in the speech which he has just made, he recognises that there is a problem of some degree of gravity with which we have to deal. It is correct to say that under our administrative system, the Minister is the person responsible for the situation in law and the person responsible for the situation to this House. Because this measure relates to the fundamental rights of citizens, the Minister, I hope, will understand it if we on this side of the House inquire very carefully into how this legislation became necessary.

I do not think it would be a good thing from the Parliamentary point of view if we quickly, hurriedly or lightly passed indemnifying legislation, because the effect of it is to prevent a person who has a legal right from exercising that right in a court of law. The effect of this legislation is to condone a legal wrong and it is a matter about which everybody should be fully satisfied before consenting to such legislation.

Our Constitution provides, under Article 40, subsection (4), that no citizen shall be deprived of his personal liberty, save in accordance with law. The mental treatment code is the legal provision whereby, in their own interests, from time to time and with due and proper safeguards, persons medically ill or afflicted are deprived of their liberty in accordance with law. I appreciate what the Minister has said in relation to the manner in which the various restrictions and safeguards have to be administered. Under the code as it stands at the moment, a reception order in respect of a temporary patient expires at the end of six months. If the patient's medical condition is such that he should be detained for a longer period, under the law as it stands at the moment, it is necessary that an extension order should be signed by the Minister. For many years, the process whereby these extension orders came to be signed was an administrative process in the Minister's Department.

The applications for an extension order came from the hospital authorities detaining the person concerned and it was then examined and dealt with in the Department.

The only reason one should be on guard in relation to that is that in the long period during which this code has existed, there is the fact that there has never been a slip-up and that may perhaps have led to some slight complacency with regard to the type of system which is in operation. I should say that, when I was Minister, it never occurred to me to question the manner in which this system was working. It probably did not occur to anyone to question the system until some initial slip-up or difficulty became apparent. When the difficulty does become apparent, it is quite easy then to be wise.

Obviously, a more desirable system would be some sort of scheme of checking or safeguarding in the Department which would automatically bring up, at the end of six months, the name of every person being detained. If a register were kept in the Department of Health and if, at the end of a six months period after the original detention order was made, the name of the person detained were brought forward for inquiry as to whether his detention should be continued or not, it would be a much better system. Possibly at the moment there is no power in the Department of Health to register the initial reception orders. Possibly at the moment, once the initial reception order is made, the person concerned becomes only a name in the Department file when an application is made for an extension. A better system would be to keep a register of all persons detained once the reception order is made so that the Minister will be in a position, from time to time, to check that no person is left languishing in a hospital and detained without due process of law.

I am speaking on these lines now because this problem has arisen and I do agree that certainly it had not occurred to me before that this kind of situation might develop. The Minister has come here to deal with a problem which has led to the unlawful detention of 280 people in the past six months. I can understand that the Minister may feel some diffidence in this matter and may have some reluctance to disclose more than is necessary but the story he tells us is certainly rather a strange one. He tells us that a junior officer of his Department became ill on 13th December last year and absented himself on sick leave. Six days later it was discovered that this junior officer had suppressed 280 applications for these extension orders. I do not know what the Minister intends to convey by the word "suppressed" which he used twice. It seems to signify a deliberate selection of particular orders which were prevented from going to the Minister for signature. That seems an extraordinary thing to have happened and if the Minister is in a position to give more information with regard to that I certainly think the House should have it.

I should also like to know, if it was the duty of this officer to deal with these applications, to see that they were examined by the medical advisers of the Minister, how it was that a week elapsed after his absenting himself on sick leave before this suppression was found out? In any event it appears that the Minister was aware of the problem on the 19th December. Again, while there may be two views about this, to me it seems difficult to understand why a period of over two months should have elapsed before this legislation is brought to the House.

The Minister apparently has been aware since before Chrismas that 280 people were being unlawfully detained in mental hospitals and he comes in to-day with a measure which he asks the House to pass this day dealing with these detentions and authorising them. I think the Minister could explain a little bit more fully why that delay should have taken place. In his Second Reading speech he said that each of these applications had to be examined —he used the phrase rather unhappily, I thought—"with special care". I would have hoped that these applications got the same attention, the same careful examination as if they were just one of the ordinary applications coming to the Minister for signature. After all, they relate to the constitutional right of a citizen of this country not to be detained except in accordance with the law.

The fact is that under the system as it operated up to this mental hospital authorities, we learned from the Minister, were asked to send in their applications within a fortnight of the expiration of the period of six months. That would seem to indicate that up to this the Department was geared at least to give a careful and proper examination to 120 applications in a period of a fortnight. Accordingly, I fail to see why this matter should not have been investigated within a shorter period than two-and-a-half months and a decision come to.

I am happy to learn from the Minister that, after the careful and proper examination subsequently carried out, the recommendation in relation to each one of these persons would have been a recommendation for an extension order and that accordingly if this lapse had not taken place the extension orders would have been made and no one of the persons concerned would have been wrongly deprived of his liberty. That is consoling and I am glad to hear it. Nevertheless, I think we can all feel with the Minister that this is a grave and deplorable situation, that it is one that should not have happened. It should teach us all a lesson; it should certainly teach me a lesson that in relation to administrative procedures of this kind which relate to the rights of poor, ignorant, uneducated people we should be far more careful and bend over backwards, even though there is tedium involved, even though there is far more administrative effort entailed, to ensure that each application and each case is examined as if it were the only case involved and very careful attention given to it.

We can all learn a lesson from that. While the Minister will get his Bill through the House to-day I hope he will realise he will not get it from a complacent House or a House that gives this to him lightly or irresponsibly. Everybody in this House realises that this exceptional measure relates to a very grave problem and while the House recognises the problem as being a grave one, the House, nevertheless, in the special circumstances, does give the Minister this indemnifying legislation.

Mr. Corish

The fact that such a measure is so unusual could be taken as a tribute to the general efficiency of the Civil Service. However, even though a Bill of this kind is unusual and very infrequent, I do not think, as Deputy O'Higgins said, we should approach the business with any sense of complacency nor do I believe the Minister himself has treated this matter in any complacent manner. However, it has demonstrated to us that, no matter how well greased the Civil Service machine may appear to be, it is liable to get grit into the works now and again.

There are some questions I should like to put to the Minister in respect of the error which the Minister has described to us in his Second Reading speech. It frightens me somewhat to think that documents may go to Departments of State and as in this case, an application for the detention of 280 patients, and that such applications may appear to be buried for two-and-a-half months. These applications, I assume, are addressed either to the Minister for Health or to the Secretary to the Department of Health. Neither I nor anybody else expects that a Minister of State, the Minister for Health or the Secretary of the Department should have to scrutinise every letter that is addressed to him at the Department of Health but the Minister in this case has described the officer who made the error as being a junior officer. I do not want to make this appear any sort of an inquest or an inquisition in relation to the Civil Service or to civil servants in the Department of Health but surely there must be some person in a particular section assigned to ensure that applications of a serious nature, such as we have here, are dealt with and dealt with within a specified time?

The Minister has stated in his speech that no responsibility for this error rests on the shoulders of the resident medical superintendents in the mental hospitals. I agree. They did not err in any way, but I think they have a responsibility. The procedure, as I see it, is such that it is the R.M.S. who makes application to the Minister for Health to extend the period during which a patient remains in a mental hospital. The eight R.M.S. in question surely at some stage between October and the middle of December must have made, or were bound to make, inquiries as to what happened to these applications. Suppose these R.M.S. made application in October for the extension of the detention of a patient from, say, 13th of October for another six months. Surely, when that date arrived and they had no order from the Minister, it was their duty, their responsibility, to make inquiries from the Department of Health as to whether or not the Minister had made, or refused to make, the order? It may will be that such correspondence went out to this particular quarter in a communication, was sent back to the R.M.S., to the effect that the order or permission had been granted.

I should like the Minister to make it clear whether or not it was a simple letter from the Department to the mental hospitals, such as is usually sent, or a copy of a Ministerial order. Did the order have "Seán MacEntee, Minister for Health," written on it? Was a copy of that sent to the R.M.S., or did the communication merely purport to speak in the name of the Department of Health with the usual phrasing, "I am directed by the Minister for Health to state that the extension may be granted in the case of patient so and so?"

However regrettable and deplorable it is that the Minister should have to introduce such legislation, I have no objection to giving him all Stages of this Bill today. There has been a change, as announced, in the Mental Treatment Bill of 1960 whereby the Minister does not in future have to give permission for an extension of the detention of any patient. I think it is a much more satisfactory arrangement.

Perhaps the Minister would give us some further details on this error. At the same time, I do not think it desirable that we should appear to have an inquisition on civil servants generally or on the particular official who made the error.

Mr. Sweetman

There are two entirely different principles which must be considered in relation to this Bill. The first is in relation to mental patients who are concerned and all of us without exception are anxious to ensure that everything is done to safeguard their position and their return to full health and also to safeguard themselves in whatever institution they may be. I do not accept at all that the consideration of whether a person should be detained for a further period under the Act of 1945 is a matter that is entirely routine, entirely automatic or should be considered in that way. Nor am I to be considered at all at this stage as accepting the position that the proposal in the Mental Treatment Bill, at present before the House, is a good change, but I do not propose to discuss that now.

I think we must first consider this Bill from the point of view of what is best for the patients and I think it is best for the patients that the course suggested in this Bill should be adopted. Therefore, I also am prepared to support that course. But there is another principle involved in this case, a principle which the Minister for Health himself would be the very first person to bring to our attention, if we were on the opposite benches, that is, the principle of Parliamentary responsibility.

In relation to this Bill, the behaviour of the Minister in regard to the principle of Parliamentary responsibility can only be described as scandalous. The Minister has come into the House seeking an indemnifying Bill and there is not one word of regret on his part although it is he who is responsible for the Department. In no Department of State are the civil servants servants of this House; they are servants of the Executive and it is the Minister who is responsible to the House. The civil servants concerned are not responsible.

The Minister has described the occurrence as regrettable and deplorable. Of course it is, but the Minister has not uttered one word of apology for his part as the Parliamentary head of the Department, the person responsible to Parliament for the mess that has been created. He is the person whose duty it is to see and to ensure that the Department is administered properly in accordance with the directions given to it by this House from time to time. I have not the slightest doubt of what would have happened if, when I was Minister for Finance, I had to come into the House in similar circumstances and if I had not issued or given, as I should have given, a proper apology to the House in the case of the Department under my administration. That did not happen. But the Minister now comes in and does not say one word of personal regret to the House for the fact that the Department over which he presides has suspended 280 applications.

For far less than that, a Minister in another parliament had the honour and the sense of responsibility to resign his post when a mistake was made by somebody under his administration. It is accepted everywhere as a matter of parliamentary responsibility that it is the Minister who must stand over the actions of the civil servants under him because they are his and the Government's and are not servants of Parliament. The Minister has always been pretty quick to point out to the House the doctrine of parliamentary responsibility. In that case I have quoted, the Minister concerned took the honourable and dignified course of resigning as Minister because an appalling botch had been made by somebody under his administration.

The Minister for Health, who can be the most charming person in the world socially, can be utterly impossible when he stands on his feet here as he has proved in this case by not tendering to the House any apology of any sort. I shall describe the action of the Minister, in relation to Parliamentary responsibility, in deliberately trying to throw away from himself the responsibility for these actions, in trying to pillory in the public estimation servants of his own Department, as a scandalous abuse. This speech by the Minister can be described as nothing but an attempt by him to pillory an official in his own Department. He should have got up and said that a mistake was made, that he accepted responsibility for it, that it was a matter for him to stand over and not try to seek refuge behind what had been done by the junior official.

Of course we all know perfectly well why the Minister is not finding adequate time for the administration of his Department; he is much too busy going around the country trying to rake up the embers of the Civil War, trying to stir Sligo-Leitrim to go back to the Civil War atmosphere, but Sligo-Leitrim gave him his answer, just as Sligo and Griffith, with the help of MacEoin, gave the Bolshies their answer 40 years ago. If the Minister had attended to the business of his Department in a proper way by trying to ease and oil the machinery to ensure that it was administered in accordance with the directions of this House and did not spend so much time trying to cause trouble outside with other associations, trying to avoid answering ordinary, courteous questions put to him in the House as were put last week on the Social Insurance Supplementary Estimate, then he would not have to come in here and ask us to give the indemnity which has to be given, and given, let me add, in the interests of the patients.

It completely defeats me how any Minister could have the hardihood, the effrontery, to come in here and acknowledge that 280 applications had been suppressed in his Department, and not offer a word of apology for his maladministration and failure to administer the Department in accordance with the ordinary tenets of Parliamentary responsibility.

We know now that the Minister is interested in Parliamentary responsibility only when it suits himself; we know now that he is interested in being meticulous only when it suits himself; we know now that he is apparently prepared to throw it all overboard and shelter behind a junior officer of his own Department, instead of being man enough to stand up to say: "The fault is mine. This is the best thing in the interests of the patients. I accept that fault and apologise to the House for it." If he had done that, he would be a better man and he would go out of office in October—rumour has it that he does not intend to stand again : he will go out of office, assuredly, we all know that—without having reneged on the very principles on which this House was founded, and which he has heretofore tried to cod the people he believed in, in relation to Parliamentary practice.

Mr. Sherwin

I propose to take advantage of the Second Reading of this Bill to refer to the question of the detention of patients. I have, on other occasions, raised the question of persons who have been certified as well but who, because those who certified them will not take them out, cannot get out. The Minister states that is incorrect, but, to a large extent, my allegations are correct. Even where the R.M.S. can release a person in his own custody, he thinks twice before doing so, and in many cases he does not release the patient unless the person who certified him is prepared to accept him in custody.

I do not intend to mention any names but I have with me a letter which I received, and which I now quote:

Dear Sir,

As I heard a statement from the Dáil today——

—he probably heard it from Radio Éireann—

——that there are nineteen thousand patients in mental hospitals. Referring to your statement you stated that some of these patients are in them because they have no home of their own.

—that is so in many cases—

There are some young men and women signed in by their people who have no intention of ever taking them out which is not justice retaining anybody against their will when the doctor has already discharged them. I am one of those victims.

I am willing to work and earn my living on the outside world and look after myself. I am not married.

I would be very grateful to you if you could get this brought up in the Dáil.

I wrote to that person and received an answer from him, and I am satisfied, from my information, that he has been certified as well, but, because his people will not take him out, he is virtually a prisoner.

It is common knowledge that such cases occur. About a week ago, it was reported in the Press that two sons tried to certify their "old man."

An Ceann Comhairle

The Deputy should know that case is before the courts.

Mr. Sherwin

It is not sub judice; it is finished. It was certified that the man was not insane.

An Ceann Comhairle

I am advised that the case is before the courts.

Mr. Sherwin

It is not now.

An Ceann Comhairle

I am advised that judgment was reserved in that case.

Mr. Sherwin

I accept your direction, Sir; I was not aware of that. There are many such cases. I know of a man who certified his wife. He is living with another woman and has not the slightest intention of taking his wife out. Such cases are fairly common for that reason, or for property reasons. Where the Department are satisfied that a person has regained his health, notwithstanding the fact that those who certified him will not take him out, he should be able to get out in his own custody or in the custody of someone else. I understand the position is that those who certify a patient must be prepared to accept him, There are numerous cases where that does not suit. I am not satisfied with that position and I shall raise the matter again, if necessary.

Mr. Norton

As the Minister indicated, this is a very unusual Bill, and it arises from very disquieting circumstances revealed by the Minister in the course of his introductory speech. The whole incident surrounding this irregularity throws a rather interesting sidelight on the administrative methods of the Civil Service and the apparent complacency on the part of people who should know better in regard to receiving an early reply when they write to a Department of the Civil Service.

This case bears out the patience of People who write to a Civil Service Department and hope they will get a reply within a reasonable period. Here is a case where eight resident medical superintendents in charge of large mental hospitals throughout the country, sent forms to the number of 280, approximately, to the Department of Health, which forms were delayed there for ten weeks or approximately two and half months. No reply was received by the R.M.S. in a large number of these cases. Although the resident medical superintendents must know that authority to detain persons for longer periods was not forthcoming from the Minister or the Department, nevertheless they accepted the situation in which those persons were detained in hospital.

Mr. MacEntee

The Deputy is wrong in that.

Mr. Norton

I should like to be corrected.

Mr. MacEntee

Notification was sent out to each mental hospital with the exception of 25 cases and in each of the 25 cases it was brought to light that inquiries were made from the Department. I think the Deputy is not doing the hospitals justice.

Mr. Norton

The number does not matter; the principle is still there. It was admitted there was very substantial delay on the part of the officer concerned in suppressing these applications for the Minister's authority. The applications were discovered and the officer went sick. They were then dealt with and, according to the figures the Minister has just quoted, in about 25 cases, persons were detained when, in fact, there was no covering authority for their detention.

It seems strange that persons of the standing of resident medical superintendents should meekly accept so much delay and also accept a situation in which a number of persons were detained against the law, in the absence of authority from the Minister. It is a serious situation that a person should have his liberty taken from him because the Minister for Health has not given his authority for the continued detention of persons.

I take it the junior officer who initiated the misdemeanour in this instance was obliged to submit these forms to a more senior officer. Was it not noticed at any stage that either the trickle of forms had dried up or that no forms were coming for a period? Was it not observed that something must be wrong when, over a period of 2½ months, it was possible for the junior officer to have, as the Minister said, suppressed so many applications for an extension of power to detain mentally affected persons? It all shows that, dealing with a phase of the Department's activity, there ought to have been more adequate check in so far as applications for the continued detention of persons in mental homes are concerned.

I was interested to hear Deputy Sweetman refer to the constitutional practice in cases like this where a first-class mistake is made in a Department and where the Minister, recognising he is the political head and responsible to the people for the official administration of the Department, comes in circumstances similar to this and confesses he is responsible as the political head and offers to tender his resignation. If Deputy Sweetman has any notion that the present Minister for Health intends to resign I am surprised that, having sat in this House for so long with Deputy MacEntee, Deputy Sweetman should make the fundamental error of imagining that a tiny little thing like this— delaying 280 forms—would shake the Minister for Health into any such righteous indignation as might, in a fevered moment, induce him to take out a fountain pen and write his resignation. Anybody who believes that kind of action would be taken by the Minister for Health would have to start off again and study the Minister for Health.

General Mulcahy

He should be certified.

Mr. Norton

In his wildest moments, the Minister for Health would never commit himself to a righteous course of that kind which would have such serious consequences for the Minister. A matter of 280 forms would not trouble this Minister and goad him into resignation. Two hundred and eighty Polaris submarines would not get him out of that seat, much less 280 forms. Anybody would think the Minister for Health is bothered about a frivolity such as 280 forms. That is nothing to the Minister. That is nothing to a old warrior like the Minister who has taken on the whole medical profession and is now waging war with them for four years.

An Ceann Comhairle

That is irrelevant.

Mr. Norton

Thank God it is. We ought to recognise frankly and gallantly that with so many things on his plate—so many wars to fight, so many fronts to defend, on the whole, the Minister is doing a fairly good job with only 280 forms delayed for ten weeks.

I hope that, in the autumn of his political life, before the Minister leaves the Department of Health he will take steps to ensure that this serious administrative oversight will not only not be repeated but will not be capable of being repeated. I understand that under the Mental Treatment Bill the Minister's authority will not be necessary for future detentions. That brings me to a question I want to ask on this Bill.

If this Bill is intended to deal only with the case to which the Minister made reference in his opening speech why is this Bill not being given a limited life? Am I right in thinking that the reason is that this Bill will lapse when the Mental Treatment Bill proper becomes law? Otherwise it seems that this is a permanent Bill to deal with a temporary situation. I am just assuming that maybe the reason is that the provision here enshrined will in fact be abolished by the provisions of the main Mental Treatment Bill which the House is discussing. I should like some information from the Minister on that point.

Mr. Dillon

I think the two points raised by Deputy Sweetman in regard to this matter require careful consideration. If we get casual about such matters we shall jettison very precious elements in the system of parliamentary government that operates in this country I believe to the great advantage of us all. I do not think any man has long been in Ministerial office in this country without being taught the lesson that, vis-à-vis Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann and the country, he is responsible not only for the success but for the failure of the Department over which he presides.

The Minister who comes in here with a comprehensive brief and scintillates in public by detailed knowledge of the subject which it is his duty to bring under the attention of Dáil Éireann does so very largely because civil servants of his Department have burned the midnight oil to ensure he will be armed against every inquiry that will be raised and that his brief will be adequate for the task he has been charged by the Government to do.

In these circumstances, the Minister is enjoying the credit and the work civil servants in his Department have undertaken. Very occasionally the reverse can happen. I can remember sitting in the Minister's position once when an old and trusted colleague happened to hand me the wrong figures. I experienced some measure of embarrassment in trying to back-pedal out of the situation of having argued from the basis of those figures and doubtless lost some feathers in the encounter. It would never have crossed my mind as an alibi to this House that somebody briefing me had made the mistake of passing the wrong paper. I would be indebted to that individual and his colleagues repeatedly for saving me from hundreds of such pitfalls in the past, all the credit for which I was very glad to accept from an admiring audience.

That convention is founded on a perfectly sound principle—that the political head of a Department is responsible to the Oireachtas, that he answers for all that his Department does, that he takes the credit and he shares the blame, if blame be due. But it is going to be a shocking departure from the proper conduct of parliamentary business if the Minister on Tuesday is to present us with a Mental Treatment Bill, proceed to expound in great detail and bespeak the admiration of all for his command of the complicated measures before him; and then, on Wednesday, bring in a second Mental Treatment (Detention in Approved Institutions) Bill and say:

This Bill is made necessary as the result of the action of a junior officer who absented himself on sick leave. It had been part of his duties to deal with the initial part of the procedure which I have just outlined, that is to say, the association of each application with the previous papers relating to the particular patient and their submission to the inspector or assistant inspector of mental hospitals. This is, of course, a simple routine task appropriate to junior staff.

It is none of our business in this House to determine what is "a simple routine task appropriate to junior staff." That is something which the Minister, as head of the Department, should answer. The net result of the Minister's decision that this is "a simple routine task" is that between 20 and 30 people have been illegally detained and this House is now required to pass indemnifying legislation.

I do not think it is a simple routine task. The Minister's responsibility for the personal liberty of an afflicted person in a mental hospital is, in my judgment, one of the greatest responsibilities he carries. He cannot shift that responsibility off on to the shoulders of a junior member of his staff. It is his responsibility. When we passed the Mental Treatment Act, 1945, in this House I remember on one occasion Deputy Sweetman and myself going down to the Minister's room to say we were prepared to exhaust parliamentary resources to resist a proposal that a patient could be committed to a mental hospital on the certificate of one medical person. We insisted there must be two opinions before any person was so committed because we felt the urgent necessity in cases of this kind of having any opinion, medical or otherwise, however responsibly given, reviewed by a second mind so that the liberty of an afflicted person should not be lightly taken away at a time when the person himself was, by his very condition, disqualified from seeking the vindication of his own freedom by resort to the habeas corpus proceedings which are available to the humblest citizen of the land.

I do not think it is a minor matter that the extended detention of a person in a mental hospital should be approved or required. The Minister seeks to say he has come to the conclusion that this is so routine a matter that when he brought the Mental Treatment Bill, 1960, before the Government he asked them to change the procedure because, he said, he felt it was unnecessarily cumbrous. But when you look at the White Paper where he purports to describe the change that he pressed the Government to adopt, you will find he says that, even though he asked the Government to authorise him to seek responsibility for the waiving of the Minister's direct responsibility in signing every extension of six months, he also seeks to put in the Bill a proviso that when the Inspector of Mental Hospitals makes a visit and inspection of a mental institution, "the Inspector of Mental Hospitals shall pay particular attention to patients whose period of detention has been extended since the occasion of his previous visit and inspection."

In drafting the 1960 Bill the Minister does not think this to be a simple routine task. He says, even though primary responsibility has been relegated to the R.M.S. of the institution where the patient is confined, that where an R.M.S. has made an extension it shall be the duty of the Inspector of Mental Hospitals specially to inquire into the circumstances of each person in respect of whom an extension of a detention order has been made, and presumably, if he is given that obligation to make special inquiry, to report to the Minister on what his findings were.

The first and vital point is this. Ministers answering to this House must and should not shelter under the alibi of blaming a junior officer of their Departments for matters most appropriately described by the Minister as "regrettable and deplorable"— those are his words, not mine. I want to suggest it is a travesty of the Minister's responsibility to communicate to us developments in his Department which he describes as "regrettable and deplorable" as being the responsibility of a junior officer who was assigned "a simple routine task." I am astonished.

In my judgement and experience, which go back for a considerable time in this House, I think this Bill, and the speech used to introduce it, mark a completely new departure. I have never heard this kind of alibi presented to Dáil Éireann before in all my experience of it. I am astonished that a person holding the position of the Tánaiste would not feel bound to come to the House and say: "A very deplorable thing has happened. Our first concern must be for the mental patients themselves. Therefore, I am bringing in this indemnifying Bill. But I am obliged to inform the House that I place my resignation in the hands of the Taoiseach to do with it as he thinks fit." If he had done that it would be for the Taoiseach to determine whether or not, in all the circumstances, he would refuse the resignation, and ask him to retain the responsibility, or accept it.

It is to be borne in mind that in circumstances very much less grievous, in my opinion, because it simply dealt with the disposal of a parcel of land, a British Minister not only resigned but persisted in his resignation, and on being asked by the Prime Minister to withdraw it, said: "No. I think a scandalous thing has happened in the Department for which I am responsible"—he admitted in his speech of resignation he had never heard what had happened—"I do not think that exonerates me from the responsibility which I owe to the House of Commons. When the facts were brought to light, I considered them to be scandalous and disgraceful and I accept full responsibility for them. I have resigned and I shall not reconsider it."

I now bring to the attention of the Tánaiste this fact, to which I attach immense importance. When committing to his care and to the care of any Minister for Health the safekeeping of the personal freedom of a number of persons who, we all knew at the time we were legislating for them, were utterly incapable of safeguarding themselves, we dwelt on aspects that certain afflicted persons would have the benefit of solicitors, relatives and friends and they would be perfectly safe. We dwelt on the fact that we had the fullest confidence in the resident medical superintendent but we knew that, when people are in charge of patients for a long time, they may develop a solicitude which ordinary citizens would consider excessive.

We are all familiar with the doctor in the sanatorium or hospital who will not advise a patient to go because he thinks he ought to stay longer to make assurance doubly sure. But these people in such institutions are in full possession of their faculties and can in the last analysis go. If anybody tries to obstruct them, the courts can intervene although we were conscious of the fact that it was not impossible that a resident medical superintendent, acting in the fullest good faith, would feel that this person appears to be cured but thinks he ought to keep him on for a little longer.

In those circumstances we were committing into the hands of the Minister for Health the overriding view in such cases of saying to the resident medical superintendent: "I am sure you are right but I should like to have a second or third opinion. I want to be satisfied, as this patient's best friend, having been charged with that responsibility by Oireachtas Éireann, that competent consultants will agree with your view that a further period of detention is required."

I think we were right to take that precaution. Any of us who have sat in Government realise that cases of this kind come to Government from time to time in respect of persons detained in the mental hospital at Dundrum. I well remember cases of that kind coming to our attention in which we had before us the opinion of the resident medical superintendent, the Inspector of Mental Hospitals and opinions tendered by representatives of the Department of Justice. We insisted upon getting, as a Government, independent consultants' opinions from outside. It was not until all these were carefully weighed up that we took decisions from time to time as to the final disposition of persons who had been certified at one time as being of unsound mind prior to committal to Dundrum mental hospital.

I remember the Government feeling their very exceptional burden of responsibility in determining what was right and proper to do in these individual cases. There was not one of these cases which was a matter of graver responsibility than any of these cases. What was available to the case I refer to was the anxious thought and supervision that was given to them by a body of laymen whose reaction, having heard the professional opinion, the resident medical superintendent, the Departmental doctors and so on, was that we seek further consultant opinion so that we might be certain, as certain as it is humanly possibly to be, that justice is done in these cases and that nobody's liberty is improperly restrained.

All that graver responsibility in respect of categories of persons envisaged under this mental treatment code devolves not on the occupants of the Dundrum mental hospital but on the Minister for Health. It seems to me wholly wrong that he should shuffle off that responsibility and present to this House the alibi that a junior civil servant fails in his task. It is wrong because vis-á-vis Oireachtas Éireann nobody failed but the Minister and, for whatever failure there has been, he is responsible and should face it and accept the consequential obligations flowing from that failure.

I am quite shocked at some of the terms the Minister seemed fit to employ in his speech. He says:

While in practice all applications are carefully considered, invariably the word of the chief medical officer of the institution has to be accepted and the extension granted. So automatic is the procedure that in September last, three months before the events which led up to this Bill first came to light, I had decided that it served no useful purpose and that I should ask the Oireachtas to amend it.

It should not have been an automatic decision. It was a procedure for which the Minister was responsible and he should have discharged it with a full sense of that responsibility. The fact that very rarely there would emerge a case in which it would be necessary to overrule the decision of the resident medical superintendent does not in the least mitigate the duty of responsibility that the Minister bore. The fact that 99 persons have their freedom unabridged is no consolation whatever to the hundredth person who might be improperly detained.

Furthermore, it appears to me that in the Minister's own statement there is a mass of contradictions. On page 5 he says:

All the suppressed applications have been examined with special care by the inspector of mental hospitals and he is fully satisfied that if the applications had come to him at the proper time he would have recommended the grant of extensions sought.

I cannot believe that there is an implication in that statement that if they had come at a proper time he would not have given them his special care and examined them. I assumed that all such applications had the special care of the Inspector of Mental Hospitals. I submit it was the clear obligation of the Minister for Health to ensure that that special care was given.

I should like to remind the House lest this notion be generally accepted that the determination of whether an extension should be granted or not is a routine matter, that that is not the view of the President of the High Court dealing with the property of persons of unsound mind. They are regularly visited individually. It used to be the Registrar to the Chief Justice. It is now the President of the High Court. He is responsible for the property of persons of unsound mind and in the discharge of that duty he regularly visits them and inspects. Surely if the administration of the property of these people requires vigilance of that character, the question of whether they are to be free or detained is infinitely more deserving of vigilance and care.

We shall give this Bill to the Minister, lest patients who require continued treatment should suffer as a result of unintentional discharge before the proper period of treatment has been completed. We assume that a very careful review will be made of all the cases. I think the Minister has undertaken to do that. I should like the further assurance that if the Minister is resolved to shuffle off the responsibility he has had, and failed to discharge under the Mental Treatment Act, 1945, if he has resolved under Section 18 to shuffle it off on the R.M.S., we may rest assured that when the Inspector of Mental Hospitals pays particular attention to patients whose period of treatment has been expanded since his previous inspection, he will be required to report to the Minister his opinion on all these cases, stating either that he agrees with the R.M.S. or has any reservation, so that the Minister may call for a third or fourth opinion in order to ensure that the afflicted people are fully vindicated.

I should like an assurance from the Minister now that, either directly or at one remove, he will continue to regard himself as the public custodian of the freedom of persons confined to mental hospitals of any kind, to ensure they are kept there no longer than their own best interests require. I should like the reassurance that he will accept that responsibility under this new Bill and that he will discharge it more faithfully than he appears to have done hitherto under existing legislation. Secondly, I want to ask him categorically, as a Deputy, as Tánaiste, as a past Minister for Finance himself, and as a Minister of an Irish Government, does he consider it becoming or proper that when something has transpired in the administration of his own Department which he feels constrained to say is most regrettable and most deplorable, he, as the political head of the Department, should come here and say: "But it was due to the negligence of a minor civil servant"? I refuse to follow the implications of that statement into the intimate machinery of the Civil Service itself. It has wide and, in my judgement, evil implications.

Perhaps I had better elaborate on that to make it clear. A Department of State has its establishment and a head of that establishment. In all my experience, I never remember the head of that establishment claiming that he was immune from blame because of malfeasance or non-feasance on the part of a junior member of the staff. He accepts responsibility and if he is reminiscent of the multitudinous assistance he received from him and his colleagues, he would face Parliament and accept responsibility, if that were necessary. But it is a shocking principle for a political head of a Department to come in here and by implication say: "The senior members of my establishment disown responsibility for this because it was the performance of a junior." They have a responsibility to see that the juniors faithfully discharge the tasks assigned to them and it is no alibi to say it was a routine task. I do not wish to pursue that because my function as a member of the Opposition is to deal with the Minister. I invite him to say if he knows of any precedent in his Parliamentary experience, which is longer than my own, by which a Minister has come to meet Parliament with an alibi of the kind he has thought is proper for something he describes as deplorable?

In the administration of his Department, I know of no precedent and I want to say with great emphasis to those who do not understand the significance of what is happening here to-day that I hope no other Minister of any Government we may ever have will accept what the Minister is doing today as a becoming precedent in the future. If it were, parliamentary government would quickly become impossible. I am astonished that a man who holds the position of Tánaiste in an Irish Government should have sought assent to such ignoble a precedent. I do not abandon hope that before this Bill finally passes he will see fit to mend his hand.

Mr. Ryan

This Bill is not the least of the reasons why the Minister for Health should do the decent thing and resign all the public and Parliamentary offices which he holds. This House and the other House exist to protect the interests of the humblest person in the community against the Executive, the Executive being the whole administration of the Government. Just as the head of a firm must take responsibility for the incompetence or deliberate neglect of duty of any person employed by him, so must a Minister personally and very seriously accept responsibility for neglect on the part of any officer in his Department. The neglect of the most inferior member of the Civil Service is the neglect of the Minister and there is no way in which this House can compel the Civil Service to carry out the laws of this country, except by making the Minister responsible, if and when a civil servant fails in his duty. It is only because of that great fear that their Minister might get into trouble and serious trouble, that some members of the Civil Service will live up to their responsibilities. Let it be understood that I am not making an attack upon the Service in general. I am well aware, as all people interested in public life must be aware, of the magnificent devotion to duty and the magnificent services far in excess of their duty which so many and the majority of civil servants show but one of the main spurs to efficiency, one of the things which compel public servants to do their duty is the possibility that their Minister may get into trouble if they neglect to do their duty.

For that reason, the clear obligation on the Minister for Health now, for the sake of the future of the working of democracy in this country, is to resign. If he did so, he would not have attached to him the amount of blame and criticism which can be justifiably levelled at him so long as he digs his rather muddy heels further in.

As other Deputies have mentioned, this is a very serious matter of principle, not one which can be lightly glossed over by blaming an inferior and an anonymous official, an official who is unknown to the members of this House.

One thing which is highly objectionable about this Bill is the speed with which it was introduced, the lack of opportunity given to Deputies to consider the matter and the fact that there are many members of this House who even one and a quarter hours after the debate opened are still unaware of this very grievous matter. It would appear that it is the Minister's intention to press that this Bill be given to him in all Stages with the least possible delay, when, in fact, it demands the most serious and impartial consideration by all members, no matter on what side of the House they may sit.

It is objectionable that the Minister should come in at such very short notice and expect all to be forgiven him and his inferiors when this House has already imposed very serious duties upon the Minister and those duties have not been properly carried out. We cannot lightly or rapidly forgive such a very serious matter.

Another aspect of this Bill which I find objectionable is that it seeks to deny to people who have suffered by this neglect the right to recover damages. If any person has suffered as a result of ministerial or departmental neglect, if any person has suffered an injury or a loss of a right or privilege or treatment as a result of that neglect, or if any person has been unlawfully detained in custody as a result of that neglect, that person's right of action to recover damages should not be taken from him as we are being asked to do by this Bill.

On those grounds, I feel that the Minister in his opening speech has shown that he does not consider the matter of any great importance. We, on the other hand, feel that it is a matter of such grave importance that the only decent course open to the Minister is to offer his resignation.

I should like to think that the Minister's heart was flowing over with contrition, that if there were only a drop of contrition in the bottom of his heart when the debate opened, more and more has flowed into it in the meantime, but, unfortunately, we know that the Minister has a heart which burns with such fire of indignation that it burns up the waters of contrition which ought to flow through it.

I would ask the Minister not to blow off the usual steam when replying to this debate but to have some regard for the vital principles of democracy, to have some regard for the duties which rest upon him as Minister and to have regard for the position and duty of this House not to forgive a serious sin on the part of the Executive. The matter might, perhaps, be forgiven and remedial measures might be provided if the Minister would do the only thing he ought to do, that is, resign and leave it to another person to carry through this Bill, because we do appreciate that there is a necessity for it in order that a mighty wrong may be to some extent undone.

Mr. MacEntee

I have not come to this House with any alibi. As to what my future will be in relation to the Department of Health, I am in the hands of the House. I have come to the House and I have made a full disclosure of the facts. If I had not mentioned how this situation had come about, Deputy Sweetman, the Leader of the Opposition and Deputy Ryan would have accused me of concealing the facts. I am not sheltering behind a junior officer but I have to tell the House how it came that a ministerial order, which it was in my discretion as Minister to make or not to make, happened not to be made though a request for such an order had been received in the Department.

I wonder where the negligence on my part arises? I have not detained these patients in mental hospitals. The matter arises because they have been detained irregularly, so far as the law is concerned, but according to those who are competent to speak with authority, are being detained quite properly from a medical and therapeutic point of view. All that we are concerned with here in the Bill is one thing, to regularise the detention of the patients and indemnify these psychiatric specialists who felt when they applied for a ministerial order that these patients should be for their own welfare detained for a further period, against the fact that they did detain them without a ministerial order having been duly made.

Mr. Sweetman

Having been told that there was one.

Mr. MacEntee

I did not interrupt the Deputy, so let him throttle down his bile for a little while.

Mr. Ryan

No contrition.

Mr. Sweetman

The Minister is a good one to talk about bile.

Mr. MacEntee

I was saying, Sir, that in, I think, 255 of these cases, notifications went out from my Department to the effect that the ministerial order had been granted. I suppose the House would expect me to explain how it was that those notifications went out.

Mr. Sweetman

The House would expect you to be man enough to take the responsibility.

Mr. MacEntee

I would ask you, Sir, to ask Deputy Sweetman to allow me to proceed without interruption.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

I would ask the Deputy to allow the Minister to proceed without interruption.

Mr. MacEntee

One cannot expect fair play from Deputy Sweetman. You never get it from him. That is not how I treated him when he came to me on occasions.

Mr. Sweetman

The Minister has made a personal comment which he will either justify or withdraw.

Mr. MacEntee

When the Deputy was in difficulties, he never found me trying to take the mean sort of advantage which he and his Leader tried to take here today.

Mr. Sweetman

That is untrue and the Minister should know it.

Mr. MacEntee

Let me get back and I would hope that you, Sir, will ensure that the Deputy will allow me to refute the allegation which has been made, both by him and Deputy Dillon, as to my conduct. I said I did not come here with any alibi. I put all the facts before the House. I am in the hands of the House.

I wish to come back to the Bill and to show what a hollow sham the speeches we have listened to from Deputy Sweetman and Deputy Dillon are. In order to bolster up those shams, we have had the most shameful misrepresentations on the part of Deputy Dillon. Deputy Dillon alleged that in my speech I stated that I regarded the question as to whether an order should be made acceding to the request of the resident medical superintendent that a patient should be detained as a simple, routine task appropriate to a junior staff officer. I said nothing of the sort, but by taking words out of their context, Deputy Dillon, the Leader of the Opposition, and Deputy Sweetman endeavoured to create the impression that I did say it.

Here is what I said, referring to this junior officer: "It has been part of his duties to deal with the initial part of the procedure which I have just described—the association of each application with the previous papers relating to the particular patient and their submission to the Inspector or assistant Inspector of Mental Hospitals." I then added that this was a simple routine task appropriate to junior staff. Here is what this particular officer had to do. I have here a particular file. Here is this pink paper which is an application for the detention of a person in an approved institution as a temporary patient. This one happens to have been received in my Department some time in September. It is followed up by a report received about three weeks later. That is this green paper, which is the report made by the chief medical officer of the institution in which the patient had then been for 21 days after his reception. Those are these two papers.

Within a period of six months after the date of the actual reception of the patient, an application is received on this form—this white paper here. It is in this form: "I wish to refer to the case of the above-named patient who was admitted on such and such a date and in accordance with the provisions of Section 89 of the Mental Treatment Act, 1945, I now apply to have the period of detention extended for a further six months." Here is what the junior officer to whom I referred in my opening speech had to do. When he received this paper, the white paper, from the registrar's office—and I hope Deputy Sweetman is listening to this ——

Mr. Sweetman

How you could lose 280 of those nobody knows.

Mr. MacEntee

When he receives that form from the registrar, he has to look up the relevant number, find the file, put that white paper in its proper place on it, attach another form to it and ensure that it goes to the Inspector of Mental Hospitals or to the Assistant Inspector. Is that not a simple routine task appropriate to a junior staff officer? Or is the Minister or the head of his Department supposed to do it? That is the context in which I used the phrase "simple, routine task." Nobody listening to Deputy Sweetman or Deputy Dillon could gather anything from them other than that I had stated that I regarded the granting of a ministerial order detaining a patient for a further six months as a simple, routine task. Is that not what they would have concluded from the wild and whirling words of the Leader of the Opposition?

I went on then to describe the procedure which had been followed in dealing with requests for these ministerial orders, not merely in the Department since I became Minister, but under my predecessors, including a colleague of Deputy Sweetman. I said that when I began to consider what the true procedure was, I saw little value in it, it had become so automatic. I said further that I decided that it was desirable to make some change there. The Government accepted my point of view in that regard and gave me the authority to make the change. The provision making that change is embodied in the Mental Treatment Act, 1960.

I agree that the procedure which has been followed for years, followed since 1950 in the Department of Health, the procedure which is to be changed by the other Bill, is not satisfactory. Therefore, I am asking the House to make the change. And if I have described the procedure as automatic, so in truth it was. But my immediate predecessor was no less prepared than I or other Ministers to act like an automaton in this matter. He did it, however, with the willingness and connivance of his colleagues the then Minister for Finance and the then Minister for Agriculture, who carried collective responsibility with Deputy Tom O'Higgins in that. I am not censuring Deputy O'Higgins for the fact that he could not overhaul the whole departmental machinery in the period at his disposal. I am not censuring him for the fact that he followed the line followed by every other Minister for Health since 1950. It is very difficult to devise any completely satisfactory alternative to that which was embodied in the 1945 Act. In Section 18 of the Bill before the House I have provided for what I think is a somewhat better procedure than that which has prevailed hitherto. Yet we heard Deputy Dillon, the Leader of the Opposition, a little while ago criticising this alternative to the automatic procedure which has been in force up to now. No matter what procedure is devised there will be loopholes, loopholes because the human element may fail and, of course, if it does fail, then something has to be done to remedy and correct the situation just as has been done in this Bill.

Deputy Dillon spoke about the practice followed in relation to the patients in the Dundrum Mental Hospital and apparently wanted it to be adopted. The inmates of the Dundrum institution are a very highly selected group of patients. They are by no means the normal type of patients one gets in a mental hospital. They are very limited in number—I forget exactly, something like 75, 77 or 78. In the ordinary general mental hospitals we are dealing with 19,000 patients and 3,000 applications for orders authorising extended periods of detention in a year.

Are we going to have two psychiatrists called in, to sit with the resident medical superintendent at every mental hospital in the country before a ministerial order can be granted? Where should we get to? What would it cost? How long would it be before two people brought in in a consultant capacity could determine whether or not the order should be granted? When you are dealing with people who are mentally ill, you do not just go in and feel their pulse and take a cardiograph. They must be kept under observation for extended periods. Should we have two consultants brought in to live in the mental hospital, keeping under observation these patients in respect of whom the resident medical superintendent feels he ought to apply for an order extending their period of detention? Is that the answer to this problem which Deputy Dillon would propound? I think it is ridiculous. By and large, for the welfare of the patients and in the general interests of the community, we must rely ultimately upon the medical advisers, the people who are treating these patients, and accept their advice as to what it is best to do for them.

Let me come back to this question of what exactly happened. There has been some sort of suggestion here that we were two and a half months or more thinking of how we intended to deal with the situation which has arisen. The position is quite simple. This junior officer went on sick leave. I am not trying to shelter behind the person when I describe him as a junior officer. I am pointing out how even the best conceived machine can go astray when the most insignificant, but essential, cog gets out of place, or a person fails to discharge his allotted task. This junior officer went on sick leave on the 13th December, 1960. Within less than a week those who are responsible for that section had some reason to feel that perhaps something had gone wrong.

About the 20th December, in response to inquiries that had been received from resident medical superintendents who had not been notified that the ministerial orders had been made, they interrogated the officer; they searched and they found 25 files, such as I have shown here, in a cupboard. As a result of that, on the 20th or the 21st December, the officer told them that he had not submitted certain files to the medical inspector and that these, of course, had not come to the Minister. It was then necessary to ascertain what had happened and, as a result of the information which he gave them, it was found that there were about 280 cases. These 280 cases had to be sifted. Inquiries had to be made in the case of every one of the patients concerned. That took a fair amount of time and it was when these matters had been fully gone into and all the necessary information was available that I was made aware of the fact. The Dáil was not sitting. I had then to consider what I should do.

My first inclination was to say: "These patients are improperly detained and they ought to be allowed to go out." Further consideration indicated that that would have been the least humane course to take, that it would certainly have caused needless worry and would have affected the health of many of these patients. The question then arose as to how we should deal with the matter. The Attorney's advice naturally had to be taken as to what provision should be made in the Bill. That took a little time. As soon as the situation was clear I came to the House and I put before the House all the facts. In doing so, I did not attempt to hide behind anyone.

It is quite true that, as Minister for Health, I carry full responsibility to this House for the manner in which my Department is administered but in these matters there must be some realism. It is all very well to say that constitutional theory requires that the Minister should accept full responsibility for everything the Department does.

Mr. Sweetman

Crichel Down did.

Mr. MacEntee

Am I to accept responsibility for the fact that an officer of my Department suffers a break-down in health? Is that my responsibility? Is it my responsibility when that officer suffering from ill-health fails to do his duty? Is there anything I could possibly have done to ensure that this would not have occurred?

It is all very well to try to create a political crisis out of this occurrence which was, as I say, deplorable, but it does not arise out of any ministerial misconduct or out of any lack of zeal or supervision on the part of the higher officers of my Department. The mere fact that, within three or four days after the official went ill, the situation which I have described as lamentable and deplorable was discovered again indicates that there was no lack of zeal or care, no lack of supervision, no culpable lack of any one of these things on the part of officials in my Department.

I have come to the House and placed the full facts before the House; I am prepared to accept whatever responsibility properly attaches to me. But there cannot be any blanket responsibility. The House is bound to look at these facts fairly despite the gloss put on them, the attempts to distort them and magnify them that Deputy Dillon and Deputy Sweetman have been guilty of here to-day. Look at them fairly. Could any person, any Minister, have ensured that a simple, routine task of that sort, of putting one paper with two preceding papers and submitting the file to the appropriate officer, would have been invariably done when one is dealing with ordinary, human persons and particularly when, as in this case, one was dealing with a sick man? I say it would not have been possible. I am sure every fair-minded Deputy will accept that point of view also but, in any event, I am in the hands of the House.

As to the officials of the health authorities to whom this Bill applies particularly, I should like to assure Deputy Corish that not one of them has failed in any way. I think 255—I am discussing round figures—notifications were sent out. There may be a weakness there. The notifications were sent to these people stating that the ministerial orders had applied. In the case of the 25 patients in respect of whom such notifications were not sent out, the resident medical superintendents of the eight hospitals concerned were on to my Department within a very few days asking why it was that the orders had not been made in respect of those 25 patients with whom they were respectively concerned. It was, as I have mentioned, because we received these inquiries that the whole thing came to light; but, again, I wish to assure Deputy Corish that the R.M.S. were quite zealous and immediately tried to have that situation cleared up to their satisfaction.

The main point in this Bill is to ensure, first of all, that those persons whom they, acting in good faith, have continued to detain as temporary patients during the current period will be in legal detention and not irregularly detained. That is the first purpose of the Bill and the second is to idemnify the R.M.S. and other members of the staff of the mental hospitals against any possible action for damages. I am certain that the House will accept my explanation and refutation. I am certain that the House will accept that the suggestion made by Deputy Dillon and Deputy Sweetman, that I said that the detention of these patients was regarded as a simple, routine procedure, is untrue. I repeat that refutation. Deputies will also realise that I am not offering any alibi to this House; whatever responsibility rests on me for the situation which has been created I am prepared to carry and I am in the hands of Dáil Éireann.

Mr. Sweetman

The Minister, in the course of his speech, made a personal charge against me and on that I am entitled to make this statement. The Minister never found me in difficulties of this sort. On two occasions I sent for the Minister as my predecessor in office to pay him the courtesy of advising him in advance of measures that I proposed to bring into Dáil Éireann next day. In my recollection these were the only two occasions when the Minister ever came to me. It is a gross distortion of the truth for the Minister to have made the charge that he made a few minutes ago.

Question put and agreed to.

Agreed to take remaining Stages to-day.

Mr. Sweetman

Will there not, incidentally, be some expenditure of public moneys in relation to this Bill? Surely the time of certain officials of the Department, for example, will be taken up in carrying out the necessary measures to put this right? Is not this an incidental matter and should we not, therefore, have a Money Resolution.

Mr. MacEntee

No, there will be no additional expenditure over and above the routine expenditure of the Department.

Mr. Sweetman

Then I must wait for the Fifth Stage to say what I have to say.

Bill considered in Committee.

Question proposed: "That Section 1 stand part of the Bill."

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

I want to bring the Minister down to the paragraph beginning "the following provisions shall have effect." The indemnity is continued in subparagraph (iii) and is to the effect that no damages shall be recoverable by or on behalf of the person in respect of his detention during the said period ending on the passing of this Act. The "said period" is the period beginning on a day less than six months before the passing of the Act and the intention is clear that in respect of his detention for the period ending in the passing of the Act a person shall not be entitled to recover damages.

This being an indemnifying Bill I merely want to raise this question with the Minister. We should not, and of course we do not, intend to go any further in that section than is absolutely necessary and it is only intended to deprive the person concerned of a right of action in respect of the period during which there was not a proper order made. I want to pose the improbable just to test the section. If, in fact, one of these 280 people was originally brought into a mental hospital under a reception order which, in fact, was defective or not properly obtained I want to be satisfied that such a person in respect of any detention following the reception of it and any following detention may have whatever rights of action he ordinarily would have. I suggest that would be achieved by inserting the word "merely" in this subsection which would then be to the effect that no damages shall be recoverable by or on behalf of the person in respect merely of his detention during the said period ended on the passing of this Bill.

Mr. MacEntee

"No damages shall be recoverable by or on behalf of the person in respect merely——"

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

——"of his detention during the said period ending on the passing of this Act."

Mr. MacEntee

That means that he would be entitled to recover damages, if the detention order were faulty. Obviously, he should be entitled to——

Mr. Sweetman

If someone hit him a clatter.

Mr. MacEntee

Deputy Sweetman might help us.

Mr. Sweetman

I am waiting for Fifth Stage for another crack at the Minister.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

Would the Minister accept my suggestion for the moment? He has to go to the Seanad?

Mr. MacEntee

Yes. We could delete it there, if necessary.

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

He might take a different view in the meantime.

Mr. Sweetman

I am not quite clear about this. For example, supposing a person received an injury during the period of detention, I want to ensure that he can have no action in respect of unlawful detention, but that he can have an action in respect of an injury while so detained. Let us take a simple case that often arises: a patient slips because the floor is too slippy and is unsafe, and gets an injury as a result. The Minister does not want to take away whatever right he may have in such a case—if he has a right, which depends on circumstances. The Minister does want to take away, and quite correctly, in our view, the right of a person to sue in respect only of his detention. As the Bill stands, I think it would cover everything that happened.

Mr. MacEntee

It would.

Mr. Sweetman

If the word "merely," as suggested by Deputy O'Higgins, or the word "only" were inserted, it would be restricted purely to detention.

Mr. MacEntee

Shall we say "only?"

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

I should like the Parliamentary Draftsman's view on it.

Mr. MacEntee

We will insert "only" at this stage.

Mr. Sweetman

The Minister can amend it in the Seanad, if necessary.

Mr. MacEntee

At line 35, after the word "respect," to insert the word "only."

Mr. Sweetman

I think Deputy O'Higgins's word "merely" is better than "only."

Mr. MacEntee

I am in the hands of the lawyers.

Mr. O'Higgins

I should like to stick to "merely."

Mr. Sweetman

Some lawyers will get a hold of the Minister sometime and he will not be glad that he made that remark.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle

The section, as amended, will read: "No damages shall be recoverable by or on behalf of the person in respect merely of his detention during the said period ending on the passing of this Act."

Mr. T.F. O'Higgins

I formally move the amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

Section 1, as amended, agreed to.

Section 2 agreed to.

Title agreed to.

Bill reported with amendment and received for final consideration.

Question proposed: "That the Bill do now pass."

Mr. Sweetman

In his reply on Second Reading, the Minister neglected to give any reasons further to those he had already given when introducing the Bill. On Fifth Stage, I am constricted and I cannot roam in the same way he has roamed, but I can and will say that, far from improving the position by what he said, the Minister has made it infinitely worse. He has taken up a far more disgraceful position in relation to parliamentary responsibility than that which he adopted in introducing the Bill.

It is the Minister's responsibility to this House to ensure that the personnel in his Department carry out their tasks and, if they do not carry out their tasks, it is his duty to this House to come here and express his personal regret. He has failed to do that. He has muddled things in his Department, because he has been trying, as Deputy Norton said, to carry on wars on every front, and has had people in his Department running hither and thither, trying to provide him with dud ammunition for the purpose of carrying on wars, as if he were not able, out of his own resources accumulated over the years, to cause enough trouble without getting people to look for more trouble for him.

Question put and agreed to.