Mental Health Services
Seanad Éireann — 2026-02-25
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Mary Butler (FF), Waterford

I do not think the Senator listened to my answer, to be fair. I am ambitious enough and I can give him the response because I am the person who secured the funding last year to hire 45 additional very specific staff to work in the national forensic hospital. It is not that these staff are sitting on unemployment lists all over the country; they are hard to get. That is the first point. We recruited 45 of them, including 41 to open 18 beds. We opened two beds in December and will open the other 16 on a gradual basis, which is ongoing at the moment. We should have those additional 16 beds opened by the end of March.
The beds in the intensive care rehabilitation unit are different kinds of beds and this has been lost in the whole debate. These are the sickest people in society and they have come through the courts system. I have provided €2.8 million to fund 30 additional staff to open the first ten beds. It is not one member of staff per bed. These are really dedicated staff. We already have two psychiatric intensive care units, PICUs, open in the country. The National Forensic Mental Health Service is not only there for prisoners or those who come through the court system. There are people living in this country with enduring mental health conditions and about 10% of those patients are in the National Forensic Mental Health Service because they are patients and not prisoners; they are detained patients. This crossover is not being acknowledged; this is a hospital. Some people with enduring mental health conditions might have been institutionalised 30 or 40 years ago and at this stage they might need that forensic mental health support. That is the other point. I have to make sure there is a pathway for them as well.
I also want to touch on the ten beds that were designed at the time for the forensic CAMHS unit and we are not seeing the demand for that at all. There were not 170 beds per se that were going to be provided just for people who come through the Prison Service. We have CAMHS, forensic, the ICRU and also people with enduring mental health conditions who have to come through the system. Additional capacity will be provided this year. An additional 26 beds will be provided, which will go a long way towards dealing with the waiting list. I have also provided funding for further in-reach in Limerick, which will see 11 of the 12 prisons receiving mental health supports.
I do not want to see anybody on a waiting list. We will work on that.
If I had all the money in the world I would not be able to find all the staff in the world to open those beds this year but I will do it incrementally, like I do everything incrementally. It is something I have worked on. It is amazing, when we talk about the National Forensic Mental Health Service, because it does an extremely good job. It is very rarely in the media and it is a difficult job it does. I commend each and every one of those who do this work.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-02-25/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:41+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-02-25