Irish Examiner: Why prison is no place for the mentally ill
23rd September 2024
On 23 September 2024, Ann Murphy of the Irish Examiner wrote about the recent prison visiting committee annual reports, Mental Health Reform's report on mental health in prisons and Irish Penal Reform Trust's comments on progress on the High Level Taskforce on the mental health and addiction challenges of persons interacting with the criminal justice system, and our pre-Budget submission for Budget 2025.
Executive director of the Irish Penal Reform Trust Saoirse Brady said that when the taskforce published its report in 2022, “it was published in the same week as Budget 2023 yet its recommendations were not costed”.
“While we have seen some progress, with a number of key initiatives started, many of those short-term recommendations have not yet been completed.”
In its pre-budget submission, the IPRT has identified a number of short-term goals under the taskforce’s radar, including allocating an additional €1.4m to provide ring-fenced funding to the IPS to recruit the minimum number of psychologists required, based on current prison population. It also wants the expansion of the Psychiatric In-Reach and Court Liaison Service model “which between 2006 and 2023 has successfully diverted nearly 2,000 people from prison”.
Related items:
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- Building more prisons is not the answer to overcrowding The Irish Penal Reform Trust outlines a more progressive and cost-effective approach
- Prison officers to be issued with body cameras, batons amid rise in violence
- IPRT Submission to the Consultation under Regulation 5(3) of S.I. No. 30 of 2019 on the use of ionising radiation in Irish prisons
- Prison overcrowding group to meet after capacity crisis warning
