Ivana Bacik (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sure that others will wish to join with me in paying tribute to Gerry Conlon whose death occurred last Saturday, 21 June. He was one of the Guildford Four, released from imprisonment in Britain in 1989, and spent the rest of his life campaigning for other victims of miscarriages of justice. Many of us were impressed by his work over the years. I wish to express my sympathy to his family on his untimely death at the age of 60.

I ask the Leader for a debate on yesterday's report by the Inspectorate of Mental Health Services. Such a debate could examine the numbers of people in some form of institutional care under the auspices of the mental health services. The report describes those services as a series of mini hostels around the State. The report also expresses concern about standards in some of the hostels, including an inconsistency of standards and a lack of available data. An estimated 1,500 people are in this sort of care following the closure of larger psychiatric units. There are still concerns about standards in some of the smaller units.

It would be worth having a debate here on detention in psychiatric institutions generally. The spotlight on the mother and baby homes in Tuam and elsewhere has told us a lot about detention and confinement, but there remains a great deal to be said about psychiatric institutions.

My colleague, Dr. Damien Brennan of the School of Nursing and Midwifery in Trinity College, has done a ground-breaking study on the numbers of people incarcerated in psychiatric institutions in Ireland throughout most of the 20th century. These were all State-run institutions. This does not raise the same issues in terms of religious orders, but we should certainly examine the matter in this House. Therefore, I would like to have a debate on that at some point.

I very much welcome the announcement of the release of Meriam Ibrahim, the Christian woman sentenced to death for apostasy in Sudan. I am delighted she is being released. There was an international campaign for her release but I am very saddened to see that prison sentences have been pronounced on ten al-Jazeera journalists in Egypt. We, in Seanad Éireann, have been asked by the National Union of Journalists in Ireland to raise the issue of these arrests and sentences in the House today. I would like to join with the NUJ in urging the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade to condemn the abuse of human rights in Egypt and to work with governments in the EU to oppose the criminalisation and imprisonment of journalists. These al-Jazeera journalists were doing their job but some really long prison sentences have been handed down, some of them in absentia. However, immediate custodial sentences have been handed down to at least two journalists in Egypt and we should all condemn that.