I support my colleagues, Senators Boyhan, McDowell, Bacik, Humphreys and Craughwell, who have spoken of the critical importance of us having sight of the GRECO report before we discuss the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017. It is madness to have a discussion without full information. It is completely undemocratic. I find it very disappointing to hear that some groups and individuals have made deals with the Government on other legislative matters in return for their votes to continue madly with this Bill this afternoon. I am not sure if that is true but I actually believe it. This pork-barrelling and horse trading does nothing for the moral authority or intellectual consistency of this House and I personally really deplore it. We should discuss this Bill on its merits and on its defects. We should know what our colleagues in Europe think of it. If a senior committee of the Council of Europe thinks that this Bill is utterly wrong and mistaken in various aspects, then we as Seanad Éireann should pay heed to that. I will certainly be voting to postpone the Bill until we have full information.

I wish to raise the issue of psychiatric services for those under 18 years of age on the north side of Cork city. I came across a number of cases in the last few weeks in which people under 18 who require access to a psychiatric consultant have had huge difficulty because that position has been vacant for a number of months. A locum was put in place but the locum has also resigned. As a result, young people are not able to get access to psychiatric services. It is extremely worrying. It is worrying for parents and the young people themselves.

What is wrong is that there seems to be an entrenched position that if people come from a particular area then a consultant from another area is not entitled or prepared to see them. I am not clear how the boundaries were established. I always thought medicine was about providing assistance and help when people required it and that there were no barriers or a Berlin Wall put around the place so that no one could deal with a patient from a particular area if there was no consultant appointed for that area. I ask the Leader to invite the Minister in to deal with this issue.

I have raised it with the Minister's office already. I have also raised it directly with the HSE, including the chief executive officer of the South/South West hospital group. I have discussed it with the people in charge, but it does not seem that progress is being made. I am not blaming any one person for this. It is not good enough that someone who went into an accident and emergency department in April of this year has not yet had a consultation with a consultant psychiatrist. It is wrong that the person in question cannot get on the CAMHS scheme until a full report is prepared by a consultant. I ask for this matter to be given priority so that this person can get the required treatment and some reassurance can be given to the parents.

According to figures that were released recently, over 500,000 people are waiting for outpatient appointments and 80,000 people are waiting for inpatient day procedures. These figures are at an all-time high. The National Association of General Practitioners is encouraging its members to refer patients who have been waiting for a long time to the cross-border health directive. As Senators will be aware, this procedure enables patients to avail of the treatments they require across the Border or indeed abroad. We have an issue with the cross-border health directive because we believe the capacity exists within this State to cater for those who are availing of the directive at present.

Some €9.247 million has been spent since the directive was introduced in October 2014. The Private Hospital Association has said that its hospitals have the capacity and the personnel to do all the procedures covered under the cross-border health directive. These procedures could be done in the state-of-the-art theatres in many small hospitals throughout the State, including a hospital in Monaghan.

Given that it would surely make more sense to spend the money I have mentioned - almost €10 million - in this jurisdiction rather than sending it abroad, I ask the Leader to invite the Minister for Health to come to this House to discuss the cross-border health directive and explore how this money might be spent in this State. I know it would be much better spent here. The cross-border health directive is the only show in town for those who are using it because the alternative is to spend years languishing on waiting lists. Those who avail of the directive have to contend with various issues thereafter. If they need follow-on appointments, for example, they could be out of pocket. We need to have a discussion on this matter. I would like the Minister for Health to come to the House for such a debate.

I will be supporting the Labour Party amendment in respect of the Judicial Appointments Commission Bill 2017. As I said to Senator Humphreys just now, just because it is a Labour Party motion does not mean it is a bad motion. In fact, it is a very important motion.

Now who is doing a deal with the devil?

The problems with the process being used to advance this Bill have been well rehearsed by my colleagues in this House. There are also problems with the content of the Bill. Given that we rely on retired judges and lawyers in many spheres - they are involved in chairing referendum commissions and various other activities - I find it very troubling that they are disqualified from being considered for participation in the proposed judicial appointments commission as lay persons. That is just one of the many flaws I can see in the Bill.

Senator Marie-Louise O'Donnell spoke about "freshwater" and I would like to raise some particular issues regarding the current water shortages. I think the communication of the high-profile hosepipe ban in the greater Dublin area to consumers has been very poor. I believe many people are confused. Some confusing and sometimes contradictory statements have been attributed to representatives of Irish Water, including a suggestion in The Irish Times that people should be reluctant to flush their toilets during the current water shortages. I think we should pooh-pooh that suggestion for sure. It says a lot about the so-called progress in improving our water infrastructure that a couple of weeks of fine weather is all it takes to see widespread concern about the availability of water. I say that as somebody who was in favour of water charges and who deplored the hysteria and tribalism that left us in our current circumstances, where there is no incentive to the public to conserve water. The current water shortages are not confined to Dublin, but are also being experienced in the west and the midlands, etc. This raises questions about the proposal to take 330 million litres of water from the Parteen Basin to Dublin each day. Given that water shortages are affecting the country across the board, surely there are questions to be asked about this plan. The proposed pipeline seems to be Irish Water's preferred quick-fix option for solving these problems, rather than the more fundamental work that is needed to repair our water infrastructure. I would appreciate a debate on these matters in early course.