Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Independent)

I welcome this important Bill which deals with a sensitive and, to some extent, confused area. Courts and juries have had difficulties with the issues pertaining to this area over many years. The laws on criminal insanity go back 200 years, from the lunacy Acts of the 1820s to the Juries Act in 1976. The provisions of the Criminal Law (Insanity) Bill are drawn from the various recommendations of the Henchy report in 1978. The Bill has been a long time in coming as the year in which it first saw the light of day, 2002, is three years ago. It is often said that the wheels of justice move slowly, but they move especially slowly for people with mental disorder.

Taking into account the current prison population, there are two categories of prisoner that stand out. John Lonergan, the governor of Mountjoy Prison recently stated that those from poor backgrounds comprise a large proportion of the prison population. The other section is composed of those who have various forms and degrees of mental disorder. This relates to the issue of funding mental health services. In recent years we have especially seen a considerable reduction in such funding. This corresponded with the idea of moving mental health into community care, an idea with which we all agree and would like to see occurring to an even greater extent than is visible.

Unfortunately, the move into community care was not accompanied by necessary funding, but rather by a reduction in funding. Mental health services should be made available to a large extent in the community but major funding in the area is necessary. The lack of such funding and consequent services has left many individuals on the streets or otherwise homeless, finding themselves in situations where they break the law and eventually being imprisoned. This Bill should be extended to cover this population.

The mental health area must be improved in terms of funding, resources and management. This would ensure a reduction in the number of those incarcerated who have various degrees of mental health problems. Those prisoners who have mental health problems should have treatment facilities available to them within the Prison Service. This is not currently the case as an unsatisfactory quality and quantity of service is available to this population.

With the recent purchase of land for the Thornton Hall complex, there has been a proposal that the Central Mental Hospital be located on the same site. This flies in the face of recommendations, ideas and proposals in this legislation. Such a facility should have a stand-alone site and not be integrated with the proposed prison. This is a widely held view both in the Oireachtas and outside it. It is difficult to see how such a proposal could sit with what is a modernisation of legislation through the Bill before us.

Modern psychiatry has led to greater understanding of the area of mental illness and associated conditions. As a result, the law must be clarified and developed as current law goes back almost 200 years. The Bill has new provisions dealing with fitness to be tried, as well as new rules and regulations dealing with appeal against findings, a statutory definition and restatement of the test for criminal insanity based on existing rules, and a new verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. This verdict would replace the current position of finding a person guilty but insane. There is a new provision bringing about the possibility of a plea of guilty with diminished responsibility in the case of murder.

These provisions are welcome and in line with modern psychiatric thought. This area relates to the European Convention on Human Rights. I welcome the new review body, the mental health review board, that will be introduced with this legislation. It is particularly important. Current law goes back as far as the Lunacy Regulation (Ireland) Act 1871 and the M'Naghten rules from 1821 and 1843. The Bill is therefore not before its time. I welcome it and hope that services for those who are mentally ill, both in the community and in the prison environment, will be examined on Committee Stage.

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