Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank everyone for their input. It is very interesting. I am someone who has spent a fair bit of time in prison over the years, so I have a fair knowledge of the workings. Prison is a challenging environment for anyone, even more so for someone with a disability. I am interested in people on remand knowing their rights and what procedures are in place. One of the witnesses mentioned that in prisons, ideally, there should be an expert in autism, intellectual disabilities or dementia, to guide people in those situations. I am not sure about the number of people with dementia in prisons. I am sure they are there but I am not sure what sort of a challenge it is and how much of a challenge. A lot of prisons are outdated and need upgrading. I could cite Portlaoise and a few others that are not up to standard. It is quite challenging for someone with a disability if they end up in them. I have had a lot of experiences of people going to hospitals, reporting their mental health issues or that they are in a psychosis. They end up in a hospital, they go in front of the psychiatrist and after a period, even though they are literally begging to be brought in, they are not heeded because the psychiatrist does not feel they need it. I get the impression that there are challenges in that regard in the resources in hospitals that prevent them from being brought in. There have been a lot of cases in which people have been turned away and then ended up committing suicide. It has been a disaster. I have come across a good number of cases like this. It is because the hospitals do not have the facilities or psychiatric beds, which is worrying.

Professor Gulati was right in what he said about people exiting prison. There does not seem to be a good process. Now and again, I come across cases where someone who has problems dealing with the authorities, has an intellectual disability or otherwise and exits prison. Sometimes, they get a good social worker working with them but not all the time. It is not well established in some prisons. We need that. We cannot send people out onto the streets.

We need to have accommodation. We need to have all the facilities necessary and where needed, we need to have resources there such as Hail Housing, which caters for certain issues. Article 14 of the CRPD was mentioned and it specifically provides for an end all disability-specific forms of deprivation of liberty. Article 14 states that in no case shall disability be a justification for deprivation of liberty, which is quite good and reasonable. I have met people who were in very bad psychosis and who ended up in the police station and the hospital. How is that dealt with or matched up because I am not sure whether they were in a position to make a real judgment? Do the witnesses understand where I am coming from? I would love to know the answers because that has challenged me many times when I have seen people going into hospitals and I certainly did not feel that they were capable of making a decision. I would like to hear how that is approached.