Invitation to Tender: Access to rights for people detained in secure forensic mental health facilities in Ireland

26th November 2021

*THE DEADLINE TO SUBMIT TENDERS HAS PASSED. ANY TENDERS RECEIVED AFTER 12 NOON ON 26 NOVEMBER WILL NOT BE CONSIDERED.*

IPRT is now inviting tenders for the conducting of a scoping study on access to rights for people detained in forensic mental health settings in Ireland.

CONTEXT
The interconnections between imprisonment, mental illness, and psychiatric detention are well established. The treatment of prisoners with mental illness has been described as one of the “most pressing issues within Irish prisons” by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT) and hundreds of prisoners on the caseload of the National Forensic Mental Health Service (NFMHS) team are deemed to be suffering from a severe mental illness. The Criminal Law (Insanity) Act 2006 provides for transfers of prisoners with psychosocial disabilities to a designated centre (the Central Mental Hospital) for the purpose of receiving care or treatment. There are consistently 20-30 prisoners on the waiting list for transfer to the Central Mental Hospital (CMH) with an average waiting time of over 120 days.

Despite this recognised continuum, there has been little examination of how the human rights of prisoners/patients are being met before, during and after a period in secure forensic mental health facilities. IPRT is now seeking to address this gap by commissioning a scoping study to identify the applicable rights frameworks and sectoral duties and establish whether further research and advocacy is needed in this area.
 

PROJECT OUTLINE
IPRT has been awarded funding from the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) to undertake a scoping study entitled ‘Access to rights for people detained in secure forensic mental health facilities in Ireland’. Funded under the ‘Progressing the Rights of People with Disabilities’ strand of the Human Rights & Equality Grant Scheme 2021-22, the study will build on the findings of IPRT’s Making Rights Real for People with Disabilities in Prison (2020) report. It will be informed by the UN CRPD framework and engage with the views of advocacy groups, rights monitors, and other stakeholders. It is intended that the scoping study will provide the basis for future research, collaboration, capacity-building training and support in this area. It is envisaged that the study will take the form of a rapid review, based on desk-top research and interviews with a small number of stakeholders.

TENDER OUTLINE
IPRT now wishes to commission an expert researcher(s) to conduct a scoping study on access to rights for people detained in forensic mental health settings in Ireland. Our proposal envisages the basic model set out below. We are open to considering adapted models of delivery (with the agreement of the project funders) within the budget and time constraints of the project.

The research should do the following:

• Identify relevant areas of international and national human rights standards and legislation as they apply to secure forensic mental health settings;
• Identify key areas of potential rights breaches and concern (law, policy, practice, oversight);
• Identify any current gaps in governance and monitoring, as well as policy development;
• Include interviews with a small number of key stakeholders;
• Identify areas for future research;
• Make recommendations on the potential for a national policy advocacy strategy focused on the rights and empowerment of people detained in secure forensic health facilities.

TENDER PROCESS
Tendering individuals or organisations must submit a tender document of no more than three pages. Each tender should include:

• A profile or CV of the individual(s) making the proposal;
• Details of previous relevant work in this area;
• Two samples of written work (these may be URLs to work published online);
• The methodology you propose to adopt in order to achieve the key deliverables;
• Costing and timeline with respect to the proposed work expressed within the overall budget for research of €4,200 (incl. VAT if applicable);
• Estimated number of days for completing the work.
   

For more information - including requirements, project deliverables and how tenders will be assessed - download the invitation to tender here.

This invitation to tender is now *CLOSED*