Five organisations representing patients in the mental health sector have accused hospital consultants of blocking progress on establishing review panels that would help safeguard the rights of psychiatric patients detained in institutions against their will.
In an unprecedented move, Amnesty International, Grow, the Irish Advocacy Network, the Irish Patients' Association and Schizophrenia Ireland met this week to agree a joint statement that the delays now appeared to lie "entirely" in the refusal of the consultants' main representative body to participate in the new system.
The review panels, known as mental health tribunals, were promised in the Mental Health Act (2001) to ensure that the detention of all people involuntarily admitted to psychiatric facilities would be reviewed after 21 days. Some 1,581 people were detained against their will last year, figures show.
The Irish Hospital Consultants Association (IHCA) has recommended its members not to apply for positions on mental health tribunals.
It says the Mental Health Commission and Health Service Executive have failed to provide the resources and manpower to ensure members would be able to meet the strict timetables and legal constraints in the legislation.
The intervention of the five representative groups comes on the same day as a deadline is due to expire for the IHCA to agree to participate in the tribunals. It is due to meet the health authorities in a crucial meeting later today.
A joint statement by the groups says the tribunals are an "essential safeguard" for hundreds of people involuntarily admitted to psychiatric hospitals.
"Its implementation in full would go a long way towards respecting the human rights of the most vulnerable group of mental health service users," the statement says.
The IHCA, however, says its decision to recommend its members not to apply for positions on the tribunals was the only sanction available to it to pressurise health authorities into completing preparatory work needed before seeking to implement the legislation.
The IHCA has no objection to the legislation and has been seeking reform of the area for the last decade, according to its secretary general, Finbarr Fitzpatrick.
He said that rather than delaying the implementation of the tribunals, its actions will ensure resources and facilities to give patients the legal protection to which they are entitled are put into place sooner.
However, the Minister of State with responsibility for mental health, Tim O'Malley TD, told The Irish Times yesterday he was frustrated by the delays.
"I'm very anxious that these most vulnerable people in society are being treated as pawns and are not getting the mental health services they're entitled to."