Ms Deirdre Malone:

It might be helpful to distinguish two things which I think are quite important. Professor Kennedy addresses severe mental illness for people who require treatments and conditions of therapeutic security. He is the expert on that in terms of psychiatric treatment. In preparation for the hearing I spoke to a number of staff who work in the medical area of the prisons. They tell me that an issue arises for those who manage to access, for example, an addiction counsellor or psychology services within a prison, for example in the Dóchas Centre or any other centre. It is particularly an issue for women because women in prison present with enormously complex life histories and experiences. When those women access services or make progress while they are within the criminal justice system and are lucky enough to have those opportunities the frustration being expressed is that there is not an equivalent service in the community so the person who has been working with that woman or man cannot make the link to a designated person in the community who will continue to provide a similar service for a period of time. We work in penal policy and criminal justice policy. We are not mental health experts but we are interested in listening particularly to those who work on the ground with those who are incarcerated and we are interested in considering the problems and barriers they face and what they see is working. It may assist in answering the Deputy's question. That is what they are telling me about. There is a dearth of services within the community for women or men who have made some progress with their mental health difficulty and wish to continue to do so on release but there are not always services there to catch them on release.