Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

I examined it carefully, and Deputy Ó Snodaigh has acknowledged that I have moved considerably from the original text, but in the last analysis what we are faced with is what it is reasonable to do with somebody who is beyond treatment, for whom therapy is no longer an issue and who is simply psychopathic to such an extraordinary extent that he or she is dangerous to anybody who might come in contact with him or her. In that narrow set of circumstances, do we build a unit somewhere and leave it unoccupied, with no staff, while waiting for somebody to come along? We are talking about a place behind walls with immense security provision around it waiting for a Hannibal Lecter type person to be admitted who is beyond treatment and is not in receipt of drugs, psychotherapy or anything else. Do we build such a unit or in those extreme circumstances do we do what is provided for in this Bill?

I take the point Deputy Ó Snodaigh made about the UN general principles but I remind him that those principles are stated to apply to the fullest extent possible with only such limited modifications and exceptions as are necessary in the circumstances. Under the European Convention on Human Rights Act, any decision to put a prisoner into one of these institutions would have to be taken, first, in accordance with the European Convention on Human Rights and, second, would have to be constitutional. We are talking about an exceptional case here. Deputy Costello mentioned figures but I am not in a position to predict the number of people with this condition that would come about but it could only be a handful.

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