Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-02-26
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Simon Harris (FG), Wicklow

I thank Deputy Sherlock for raising this very important, sensitive and real issue in our country, our prisons and in relation to our mental health services. It is something that I know is having a real and painful impact and is a worry for many families in our country too. I join with the many who have already thanked those who spoke on the recent "RTÉ Investigates" programme on the forensic mental health services for sharing their lived experiences and giving voice to issues that should not be seen or debated in this House as abstractions. While I am not a clinician, the responsibility of the Minister of State with responsibility for mental health and all of us in the Government must be to maintain public confidence in an essential service for a highly vulnerable group of patients - I use the word "patients" because that is what they are - and the dedicated staff who care for them. I spoke to the Minister of State, Deputy Butler, recently on this. She has asked the HSE for full reports on the cases highlighted in the programme, particularly those involving the Central Mental Hospital. I just want to make that point. The Minister of State has also asked that all appropriate care options for the individuals featured be examined.
There are actions under way to try to improve this situation. I know it is a statement of fact but it is important to remind us all that the Central Mental Hospital is just that; it is a hospital. Its purpose is and must be to provide treatment to support rehabilitation but also to have a carefully, safe, managed environment to help people return to the community where possible. We have seen demand for forensic mental health services grow in recent years and we have seen the opening of the new CMH at Portrane. That was an important moment. It saw the transfer of over 90 patients from an old, outdated, really inappropriate building in the Dundrum facility to a new hospital that has been recognised as one of the best forensic mental health hospitals in Europe. However, we need to open more beds in it. We have 114 operational beds at CMH. That is an increase of 20% on the former hospital. Additional funding has been secured to open the remaining 16 beds and recruiting staff is the key priority here. There is a need for very specialised staff in some of these settings, as the Deputy will be aware. An additional €2.8 million was provided in budget 2026 to open what they call the new ICRU which will bring beds into use that will support smoother patient movement through the Portrane campus and will also create further space.
On our prisons specifically, we already have two psychiatric intensive care units at Carraig Mór centre in Cork and the Phoenix care centre in Dublin, and we are also now providing psychiatric in-reach services to ten of our country's 12 prisons, assessing and treating prisoners with moderate to severe mental illness. Additional funding has also been provided to extend this service to Limerick Prison and we are very eager to progress with that as quickly as possible.
There is a programme for Government commitment. I think the Deputy has a different point of view on health and the Prison Service but the view was here that there was a need to provide within the Prison Service for people who require imprisonment to meet their mental health needs, separate and distinct from the health needs that could be provided in the hospital.

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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