Ireland Bans Electroshock Treatment on Minors: A Major Human Rights Advance, CCHR Says

Ireland has enacted a ban on electroshock treatment, also known as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), for individuals under the age of 18 under its Mental Health Law enacted in May 2026, according to the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International (CCHR). This move safeguards minors from a procedure that delivers up to 460 volts of electricity through the brain, which can cause severe memory loss and cognitive and brain damage. The ban marks a significant advancement in human rights, as noted by the Human Rights Institute in Ireland, which described the act as "one of the country's significant developments in the advancement of human rights and in the reconsideration of the relationship between health, human dignity, and the public responsibilities of the state."

In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared ECT devices for those aged 13 and older for three limited conditions, but the procedure is broadly administered off-label, a practice CCHR wants to see stopped. The group helped obtain the first law banning ECT use on minors under 12 in California in 1976, and later in Texas on minors under 16 in 1993. In Western Australia, it helped ban the practice on those aged 14 and younger in 2014, with criminal penalties for anyone administering it to a child.

Jan Eastgate, President of CCHR International, praised Ireland's officials for recognizing the need to prohibit ECT's use on minors, increasing the age to 17. "However, like thousands who called for ECT to be banned in the U.S. under the FDA's Final Rule in 2018, the ban should be extended to all ages. CCHR is committed to achieving this." The newly formed Stop ECT Coalition in the U.S., comprising a consortium of health and human rights organizations representing hundreds of thousands of individuals, is urging a review of how ECT devices remain on the market. The Coalition emphasizes that ECT devices were "grandfathered" into FDA regulation in 1976 as a Class III high-risk device, bypassing modern standards requiring Premarket Approval. In 2018, the FDA reduced the risk classification to moderate risk (Class II) without safety and efficacy trials, allowing ECT devices to be used on children as young as five, pregnant women, seniors, veterans, and other vulnerable persons. The Coalition notes that involuntary application, still occurring in some U.S. facilities, has been condemned by the United Nations and World Health Organization as a human-rights abuse.

Dr. John Read, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of East London, who has extensively reviewed ECT studies, stated: "Several leading proponents argued that ECT works because it reduces the intelligence or level of intellectual functioning of people... The other type of brain damage they said was helpful was that it erased traumatic memories." He and colleagues have published a review of over a hundred studies demonstrating that the effects on the brain of ECT are very similar to a closed-brain injury. Robert Rubinstein, a former psychiatry professor, compared ECT to "kicking a Swiss watch," and psychiatrist Dr. Niall McLaren stated unequivocally: "No psychiatrist needs to use ECT." A mental health strategy plan drafted by the World Health Organization's Department of Mental Health and Substance Use warned of ECT's health risks, including brain damage, cardiovascular complications, memory impairment, and even death, and stated that ECT should be banned for children and non-consenting use may constitute torture.

The Irish Mental Health Commission noted that "the most significant right potentially affected by this legislation is the right to liberty and personal security." CCHR, established in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and professor of psychiatry Dr. Thomas Szasz, has helped obtain hundreds of laws worldwide that increase informed consent rights and prohibit deep sleep treatment, a combination of ECT and a psychotropic drug-induced coma. For more information on the coalition's efforts, visit Stop ECT Coalition and CCHR's call for FDA review.