Dan Neville (Limerick West, Fine Gael)

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting the issue of psychiatric services for debate. I feel honoured this is selected as the first matter for an Adjournment debate in the 30th Dáil.

I call on the Government and the Minister for Health and Children to reverse the decision to move the Central Mental Hospital to a site adjacent to the new prison at Thornton Hall in north Dublin. The Government must respect the human rights of people with mental illness. To locate a therapeutic facility for people with mental illness, many of whom have not committed a crime, beside a prison is stigmatising and discriminatory.

Not alone has this proposal been roundly rejected by the families and carers of Central Mental Hospital residents, voluntary organisations, the Mental Health Commission, the clinical director of the Central Mental Hospital and the Human Rights Commission, it also flies in the face of the core values and principles enshrined in the report on mental health services, A Vision for Change, which the Government proposed to accept as its policy.

Central to the treatment process for patients at the Central Mental Hospital is the aim to overcome the stigma arising from criminalisation which, in most cases, is an accidental effect of their mental illnesses. Other key objectives include the rehabilitation and reintegration of patients into mainstream mental health services when it is appropriate and safe to do so. None of these objectives would be helped by placing the Central Mental Hospital adjacent to a large, high-profile prison.

In his letter to the Taoiseach, the clinical director at the hospital stated, "the proposal is about as bad an idea as it is possible to imagine". The director, Dr. Kennedy, is strongly critical of the fact that he was not included in plans to move the Central Mental Hospital and that he only learned of the developments through the media. There is an urgent need for a new hospital to replace the Central Mental Hospital. This has been recognised for a number of years and should have been acted upon at a much earlier stage.

Dr. Kennedy is insistent that the new hospital should be located beside a general hospital. He stated 200 secure psychiatric beds are needed to end the situation in which prisons are used as psychiatric waiting rooms and are equivalent to accident and emergency department trolleys. The case for revisiting this decision made by the previous Government is compelling and I call on the Minister for Health and Children to do so immediately.

One of the key issues which must be dealt with in regard to mental illness is the challenge to de-stigmatise the one in four people who will suffer from such an illness during their lifetime. Those who suffer feel stigmatised by attitudes and views from a time when psychiatry was not as developed as it is today. Society must address its attitude to those who at some stage suffer a psychiatric illness. The siting of the Central Mental Hospital adjacent to the new prison complex reinforces the prejudices and misunderstandings that many people have about mental illness. The stereotyping of mentally ill patients will allow people to continue to discriminate against those who are suffering. We must rise above this approach. The Government must do so by reversing its decision on the siting of the Central Mental Hospital. It should give leadership in attempting to educate people who do not understand the pain of mental illness. Only then will people come forward and begin to admit the pain of their illness and seek solid mainstream help. Then and only then will we demand action from Government to acknowledge the scandal and neglect of the psychiatric services. Until there is a watershed in societal attitude many will hide their illness.

A recognition of the need to change the decision to locate the Central Mental Hospital would play a key role. Until it is acceptable to be mentally ill as it is to be physically ill we, as a society, will not begin to regard the reality of mental illness as part of our human existence. Until our everyday language becomes sensitised to the need to eliminate stigma we will not succeed in addressing the need of those who suffer a mental illness. Anyone can suffer a mental illness. Anyone can die by suicide.

Given the trenchant nature of objections raised by the clinical director of the Central Mental Hospital, Dr. Harry Kennedy, there is a compelling case for the new Government to revisit the decision to site the hospital at Thornton Hall. I urge the Minister and the Government to do so as a matter of urgency.

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