Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions Dail Éireann — 2026-02-26 ============================================================ Marie Sherlock (LAB), Dublin Central Two weeks ago, "RTÉ Investigates" aired two programmes on the appalling treatment of some of the most vulnerable and seriously mentally ill persons in this country. It made for harrowing viewing. It is unconscionable that the State effectively condemns mentally ill persons who come into contact with the law to indefinite remand, without access to the appropriate medication or treatment, and all because of the lack of appropriate care in the community. In the wake of these revelations about the state of our adult psychiatric services and the reliance on our prison system to deal with and treat these people, what is the Government response? To be honest, I have heard no urgency nor any update by way of response to what is a scandal of this State. In the words of Professor Charles O'Mahony, who contributed to the programme, Ireland is effectively using the Prison Service to warehouse people with severe mental illness. Our country has replaced one form of detention in psychiatric institutions for many decades with another, the prison system. That is wrong. There are around 340 psychiatric patients being held in prisons across this country, with dozens of acutely psychotic people waiting for admission to the Central Mental Hospital. We know that one third of the beds in the Central Mental Hospital remain unopened. We heard just this week from the HSE that it hopes that ten beds will open by March but it could not be confirmed. A high-level task force report on mental health and addiction from 2022 contains some really good recommendations but there was no progress report last year, which is the year some of those recommendations were supposed to be implemented. It seems when it comes to the crunch there is little or no action. We all know this system did not emerge today or yesterday. It emerged over many decades. We now need a complete change of approach. We need to move away from using detention as a tool of control. Last year, the Mental Health Commission said there had been 62% reduction in the use of seclusion practices and restriction practices in psychiatric institutions. That is great but the reality is that many of those people are now being held in our prison system. We need to move away from a system where the only access to mental health supports is through the prison system. Conor Ryan from "RTÉ Investigates" told the story from Cloverhill Prison of how people were being refused access to psychiatric units within our hospitals and only finding that help within the prison system. We need to move to a system of diversion. Recommendations in the Henchy report are now 50 years old but have not been implemented by the State. These are life and death issues, not just for the patients but also for their families. In recent weeks, I spoke to the family of Maud Coffey, who lost their sister two years ago, and to the family of Natalie McGuinness. The thread is very clear. There is a lack of joined-up thinking between mental health services and a lack of communication with families and, ultimately, people are losing their lives. What is the Government's response to this horrendous situation of using the prison system to effectively treat and detain people who are seriously mentally ill? Will the Government proceed with a programme for Government commitment to build approved health centres within the prison system? To be frank, that is the completely wrong approach. Will the Government prioritise diversion over detention for seriously mentally ill people in this country and place diversion on a statutory framework? --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-02-26/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:42+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-02-26