ABOUT 370 people are committed to prison each year suffering from a psychosis which makes them “unfit for imprisonment”, according to a report from the Central Mental Hospital.

The study of the mental well-being of 615 prisoners found that 11.9% had a psychiatric disorder, while 3.9% needed immediate transfer to a psychiatric hospital for treatment. The figures will be presented at a conference in Croke Park, Dublin, tomorrow.

The report says people who should be hospitalised with conditions such as schizophrenia and delusions are being charged with “minor or nominal offences”. The CMH is the only highsecurity psychiatric hospital in Ireland and it says there are 17 prisoners and five hospital patients waiting for one of its 83 beds to become free.

According to the authors of the study, including Harry Kennedy, director of the CMH, “there is a need for expansion of in-reach psychiatric services to some committal prisons . . . and a need to provide adequate, secure, forensic psychiatric bed capacity to divert those with severe mental illness”.

The study examined 2002, in which 9,539 people were committed to Irish prisons. It said 372 of these should have been sent to psychiatric hospitals. There is no legal provision for prisoners to be transferred to a psychiatric hospital other than the CMH. Liam Herrick, director of the Irish Penal Reform Trust, said the figures show that the prison system is “an accident waiting to happen”.

“These people are ill and they should not be in prison,” said Herrick. “We feel sorry for the prison governors and staff as they have to cope with people who should be getting treatment.”

Herrick said the CMH staff are providing on-site psychiatric services to prisons in the Leinster region, but those in the rest of the country have no such service. The lack of beds for those suffering from psychosis is the gravest issue, he says.

“Those that need beds are seriously ill and have the highest risk of harming themselves or harming others,” said Herrick. “We have had a number of incidents where people have taken their own lives or killed others in recent years. These are problems for the [health] minister and the HSE, but they have failed to act.”

Prisoners waiting to be transferred to the CMH are put in “observation cells” until a space becomes available. The suspect in one prison murder case that has yet to come to court was on the waiting list for a transfer to the CMH. “The consequence of these people being kept in prison is their condition deteriorates,” said Herrick.

A “court diversion team” of the CMH has been operating a pilot project in Cloverhill prison for the last two years. Psychiatrists have been able to divert about 200 prisoners charged with minor offences out of the criminal justice system and into hospital care.

A spokesman for John Moloney, minister for state responsible for mental health, said the Department of Health recognised not all prisoners who needed a place could get in.

“The new hospital planned for Thornton Hall will provide much-needed capacity and a therapeutic, forensic psychiatric service,” he said.

The planned move to Thornton Hall is opposed by families of patients and mental health advocates because the new hospital will be located beside a prison. Planning permission has yet to be secured.

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