Dr. Eilion?ir Flynn:

To add to that, the term “recovery” is not used in the Criminal Law (Insanity) Act, so it does not form part of the decision about whether someone will be released from the CMH. We might talk about that colloquially and we might kind of have this understanding that people should be released if they are at the point in their recovery where that would make sense. However, that is not the legal standard that justifies whether they will be released or not. As we have spoken about in this session and as we have read in the report as well, the view of the clinical director is very critical to any release, including leave and other kinds of temporary release from the CMH. It is not as straightforward as “that person recovers and they are then released”. That is certainly not the experience that we have seen through the stakeholders that we have interviewed from this research. However, it raises those broader questions as well about accountability and responsibility in terms of how we want to address what we do when people may come into contact with the criminal justice system at times when they may be in a mental health crisis or for other reasons related to their health and well-being and are not in a great place in their lives.

I want to be clear. We are talking about people, again, colloquially in this context, having committed crimes. If someone is deemed unfit to stand trial, there is no finding that they have committed a crime. By its very nature, they are unfit to stand trial. They have been charged with a crime for sure, but they were never convicted of that crime. They were just found unfit to stand trial. It is important for us to be clear and accurate. If that trial proceeded, perhaps that person would be found not guilty. We do not know. We need to be careful that we do not assume that finding of a person being unfit to stand trial means that there is a finding that the person has committed a crime. Legally speaking, that is not accurate. It is very important that we are clear on that.

Does Ms Ní Caoimh wish to add more on recover or what happens based on capacity?