Ms Eil?s N? Chaoimh:

In response to an earlier point, I will give Deputies a sense of the number of people we are talking about. At any one time, there is usually 90 or so people detained in the Central Mental Hospital. In 2020-21, there were 24 review hearings for people who were detained having been found unfit to plead. If we assume there was a review hearing every six months or so, these 24 hearings probably account for 12 people. However, this is again unclear. There are no transparent data as to how many people are detained or the length of time for which they are detained. As I have said, we found out about that one instance of a person being detained for an extraordinarily long period through the interview process we engaged in. That is definitely one issue.

I also want to echo the point that the focus at the moment is on the idea that people would not be able to participate in a trial process. However, there is some great evidence that if people are given support to engage with the trial process, their rights are vindicated in the sense that they are given the choice to engage. As it stands at the moment, if people are found unfit to plead, they are essentially denied the right to engage in the trial process at all because it has been determined that they cannot understand what is happening. They end up in a situation where they are essentially in limbo and go to the CMH for extended periods.