I wish to share time with Deputy Joe Higgins.
I thank the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform for being present. There is an urgent need for a detailed examination of why there is such a high level of death by suicide in our prisons. There must be a comprehensive review of how the mentally ill are treated in the prison service. Ireland has the second lowest crime rate in Europe but the highest prison suicide rate. Six prisoners suffered death by suicide last year.
I raise the issue of the death by suicide in the care of the State in Wheatfield Prison last Friday of Anthony Cawley who had a sad and difficult life and who caused severe damage and extreme hurt to the victims of his crimes. He was a very damaged man, damaged while incarcerated in the institutions selected by the State to deal with him. He died while in a State institution. These institutions robbed him of his childhood, left him vulnerable to sexual assault by the State's employees and left him to rot at the age of seven. He was repeatedly raped in Trudder House which in its time, as reported recently by Anne Marie Hourihan in the Sunday Tribune, is thought to have employed a total of five paedophiles. This raises the question of who exactly Trudder House was for. I call on the Minister to publish details of the Eastern Health Board's investigations into the horrible abuse inflicted there.
It was obvious to the social services that the prisoner had a serious psychiatric disorder and needed long-term care. Mr. Justice Kevin O'Higgins described his probation officer's report on his background as one of the most harrowing he had ever read. The response of the State was to place him in a cell and check him every 15 minutes as he was at high risk of suicide. This approach is totally unacceptable. This view is shared by Dr. Charles Smith of the Central Mental Hospital. Clearly, 14 minutes and 50 seconds of non-observation is not a good way of preventing suicide in the case of those who are determined. The only way is to maintain eye to eye contact in a hospital ward setting.
We do not have an adequate psychiatric service for those who are mentally disturbed in our prisons. The Minister's best effort is to provide the equivalent of two full-time psychiatrists for more than 2,600 prisoners. A report published last month by the European CPT commission recommended that in-patient psychiatric services for prisoners be reorganised as a matter of urgency. Fr. Feargal McDonagh, head of prison chaplains, stated that if a prisoner is lucky he will see a psychiatrist for five minutes. That is stretching it. The main function of the psychiatric system is dispensing and prescribing medication, sleeping tablets and anti-depressants. Counselling is non-existent. This is not acceptable. Prisoners identified as disturbed or at risk of suicide are meant to be sent to the Central Mental Hospital. As there is a shortage of beds, prisoners are held in a padded cell, stripped to their underwear with a plastic mattress on the floor and a blanket designed in such a way that it cannot be torn and used as a ligature. They are left to eat their meals off the floor.
I sympathise with the family of Anthony Cawley, the prison governor, staff and prisoners as any suicide is extremely traumatic for the prison.