Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will make my point rather quickly and not hold up the discussion. I have known since I met the Minister of State as an Oireachtas Member in 2016 that she is committed to change. I welcome the fact she is here and I know she will move things on as quickly as she can.

I suppose we are always used to Senator McDowell being fluent and eloquent. I believe, however, the way he has expressed his opinion today is most important and easy to understand. He has expressed a strong view on where we are with mental health and people with mental health issues ending up in prisons, and he has set out that we are way behind in this country in terms of how we move forward with this issue.

I raised a number of cases recently during a Commencement debate in the Seanad on the media coverage of shocking, appalling cases of prisoners being left in prisons in deplorable situations because there were waiting lists at the Central Mental Hospital.I served on the board of Cloverhill Prison for two years, around 2003 and 2004. People talk about the visiting boards of prisons as being nice little numbers to get but for me it was one of the most challenging things I ever did in public life. When most people who have a heart and a conscience go on such committees they really become involved in the heartbreak. The one thing people must do, as Senator McDowell knows, when they agree to go on one of these boards is to sign to represent the prisoners. This is the one commitment people have to give. In that situation, we meet all sorts of heartbreaking situations and I will certainly never forget some of them. Even at that time, 15 or 16 years ago, the one thing that stuck out in my mind in some of the prison cases, which were not cases of murder or manslaughter, although there was one rather serious case but not at that end of the scale, was the number of people at the time who were saying to me they were suffering from deep depression and prison was not doing anything for them, despite the best efforts of excellent staff in most of the situations. As part the committee's work, we visited Mountjoy and other jails. What has been said about Mountjoy is right. I accept that quite a lot of improvements have been made but still, in the times we are in, we really need to have a completely new plan and a new Mountjoy, wherever it is.

This brings us back to mental health. Everybody in the Chamber knows the challenges. We meet them every day with people and families with mental health issues. Throughout the country, judges find themselves reluctantly having to send people with mental health issues to prison. I have to vote with the Government today. I do not know what we are doing with amendments and I will be supporting the Government. This is why I very much concur with Senators McDowell, Bacik and Boyhan. We really have to take a new approach to all of this. What is being done here today is really good and I know the Minister of State is totally committed. As we go forward, we need a new era and a new vision. We need to act speedily.