James Reilly (Dublin North, Fine Gael)

I thank the Whip for that.

I have before me Patients not Prisoners, a report on the Central Mental Hospital round table meeting on 30 January 2008. I intend to read why it is opposed to the Central Mental Hospital being located adjacent to a prison. This is something I spoke out about even during the last general election. It is wrong, retrograde, impinges on people's rights and stigmatises people with mental illness. God knows mental health has been the Cinderella of the health service in Ireland for generations and continues to be so.

Only recently we have seen the allocation of funds for A Vision for Change being reallocated to other areas of activity in the HSE and people with mental health put to the back of the queue again. Similarly, the co-located hospital at Beaumont, a private initiative involving the Government, was to be put on the site of the psychiatric outpatients' facility for Dublin north. The facility, which got planning permission in 2004, was put out to tender in 2005, and now it has been put to the back of the queue. This is an opportunity for the Minister and his Government to give a different message to people with mental illness.

The report is opposed to the move of the Central Mental Hospital adjacent to prison site on the following grounds:

1. It will impede rehabilitation: The rural location and lack of community of Thornton Hall will act against the reintegration and rehabilitation of patients into society and the workforce. Recovering patients will not have the easy access to education, training and social facilities that are so readily available from the Dundrum site.

2. Increased stigmatisation of the mentally ill: The physical location of the proposed new Central Mental Hospital on the site of the new prison will inevitably and irretrievably associate those with severe and enduring mental illness with criminality. Those using the hospital are patients, not prisoners.

3. Social isolation: The proposed move to a site in Thornton Hall will serve to isolate the Central Mental Hospital from a community environment. The Dundrum setting has enabled the patients to integrate slowly and safely into the community by providing a friendly and welcoming environment in which to shop and avail of local facilities on a daily basis. Dundrum village has grown up around the hospital. It is part of the community. The proposed new site is in a rural setting with a dispersed population and is not well serviced by public transport.

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