Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

I came to a number of conclusions about the facility. It is a sub-standard institution situated on grounds which must have a colossal value. It is an amazing irony that a substandard institution should be squatting on an asset which ought to be realised to provide adequate mental health facilities. That is very strongly my opinion.

I found it difficult to understand why some of the sub-standard rooms, which areindistinguishable from cells, in the older building are open while more modern accommodation in a wing added in the 1970s or 1980s is closed. I could not understand the logic of how such asituation could come about, yet it is the case. I could not understand how, when the PrisonService can put a television into every cell in nearly every prison, somebody convicted of no crime is not provided with a similar facility in secure accommodation at the Central Mental Hospital. Considering the value of the asset on which the hospital is physically located, the regime determined by the inadequacy of the buildings and the circumstances in which unconvicted persons are, in some cases, required to spend substantial parts of their lives, the matter requires extremely urgent attention.

I make no secret of my view that the asset value of the current site should be realised to build a modern forensic psychiatric institution to the highest standards somewhere else. I found it dispiriting and slightly grotesque that one could be on grounds of such value but be faced with an under-resourced institution with a physical environment, in which staff and patients are required to exist, which is of a quality wholly indefensible in the 21st century. I am not criticising the staff for this state of affairs; I am saying that these appear to me to be incontrovertible facts. I have spoken to colleagues about this matter. I am strongly of the belief that the asset value of the land should be converted to build at a different location a forensic psychiatric institution of which we can all be proud. That should and could happen sooner rather than later.

As Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, I find the current situation to be deeply unsatisfactory. Psychiatrically ill prisoners must have available to them an institution at which they can be securely treated for illnesses which may have nothing to do with the circumstances of their convictions but which may emerge during their terms of imprisonment. It is in that context that when I was first appointed I immediately toured some of our prisons, saw the padded cells currently in use and came to a very clear view that the practice of using them should be ended. Proper observation facilities for people who are psychiatrically ill should be put in place. Senator Henry has probably seen padded cells. The European Committee on the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment has commented adversely on them. In their present form, which I am glad to say is being phased out, they are wholly indefensible as a means of dealing with psychiatric and psychological problems in prisoners. In some cases it is like being put into a shower cubicle with little or no light or ventilation. Prisoners are left in their underwear in semi-darkness lying on the floor of a rubber room about twice the size of a large fridge. That is not acceptable in the 21st century.

I encountered the problem that people were being placed in these institutions while argument and debate went on as to whether they should or should not be accommodated in other, more suitable accommodation. That is not acceptable either in the 21st century. Senator Henry is pushing an open door with me in pointing out inadequacies and resource issues. Common sense must intrude when looking at a campus in Dundrum which must have a value of between €60 million and €80 million. If only half that sum were devoted to building an adequate forensic psychiatric treatment centre somewhere else, significant progress could be made and we could have an institution of which we were proud rather than one from which, at best, we must avert oureyes.