Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty

The MHC has a responsibility to promote equality of opportunity and treatment of our staff and service users, eliminate discrimination, protect their human rights and have regard to the need to eliminate discrimination.

This is a legal obligation, called the Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty (“Duty”), and it originated in Section 42 of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act 2014.

The MHC is an independent statutory body established under the provisions of the Mental Health Acts 2001 -2018 (“the Act”). Section 33 (1) of the Act sets out the principal functions of the MHC, which are to promote, encourage and foster the establishment and maintenance of high standards and good practices in the delivery of mental health services and to take all reasonable steps to protect the interests of persons detained in approved centres under the Act.

The Assisted Decision-Making (Capacity) Act 2015 (as amended) (“the 2015 Act”) expanded this role by providing for the establishment of the Director of the Decision Support Service (“the Director”) within the MHC to support decision-making by and for adults with capacity difficulties and to regulate individuals who are providing support to people with capacity difficulties.

The MHC has, and will continue to do so on a regular basis:

1. Carried out an assessment of the human rights and equality issues relevant to the functions of the MHC (“assessment”).

2. Addressed these issues, by putting in place policies, plans, and actions as required, and publish these in an Implementation Plan.

2025

Implementation plan can be accessed at the link 2025 Implementation Plan - Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty

2024

Implementation plan can be accessed at the link 2024 Implementation plan - Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty