Seanad debates

Thursday, 7 November 2002

Report of the Inspector of Mental Hospitals, 2001: Statements.

 

In terms of legislation, there are matters at which perhaps this and the other House should look. Our attention is drawn specifically to them, in particular, section 208 of the Mental Health Act 1945, which allows for the transfer of people from mental hospitals to the Central Mental Hospital, Dundrum. In the old days that was a byword – it was just a sink into which people were dumped and then sedated. It is still worrying. There was apparently a challenge in the Supreme Court to the operation of this section, which was upheld. However, the intention was that people transferred from prisons or other mental hospitals directly to the Central Mental Hospital should there receive appropriate treatment in order that they should recover. It seems, however, that this is very much the equivalent of the "at her Majesty's pleasure" notion in England. I recall dealing with a case of a constituent, a graduate, who was virtually imprisoned in a British mental hospital as a result of behaviour which had been provoked by the fact that he had joined a religious sect, got entangled in various ways and then tried to break out of it and caused a limited amount of violence. He was literally imprisoned in a hospital in Liverpool for a decade and I had to move heaven and earth to get him out.

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