Legislation governing committal practice has been a cause of controversy worldwide. A review of the relevant literature highlights the ongoing debate between those advocating broadly based ‘need for treatment’ criteria as a basis for committal (‘Parens Patriae’), and those who advocate more narrowly defined criteria requiring evidence of ‘dangerousness’ to validate committal. Current committal law in Ireland follows the ‘Parens Patriae’ tradition. However the recently published Green Paper on Mental Health points out that the current law is not compatible with international obligations, making reform inevitable. The Green Paper suggests various alterations in relation to committal criteria and procedures, with the retention of both ‘need for treatment’ as well as ‘dangerousness’ as valid committal criteria. These changes appear to be compatible with the ‘Stone criteria’ adopted as a model committal law by the American Psychiatric Association.
