Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 14 May 2024
440. Deputy Patrick Costello asked the Minister for Justice the average wait time for a generic prisoner to meet with both an addiction counsellor and psychology services for ongoing intervention, separate from for an initial assessment in person, for the period of 2015 to date, by institution, in tabular form.; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [21314/24]
View answerThe Irish Prison Psychology Service provides an integrated service to people in custody. Specifically, this means the Psychology Service is responsible for both mental health and criminogenic (offence related) assessment and interventions.
The Irish Prison Psychology Service works primarily through a layered care model, providing primary, secondary and tertiary level mental health care to people in custody. A layered care model provides clients with access to a variety of responses, from minimal interventions such as whole population approaches with the Red Cross and primary care mental health interventions, to more specialist mental health and personality disorder treatments.
At any one time approximately 60% of referrals to the Psychology Service are specifically in relation to the mental health of people in custody. These referrals include; mood and anxiety disorders, stress related disorders, disorders of personality and behaviour, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) including Complex PTSD, self-harm and suicidal behaviour, substance use, eating disorders, psychosis and schizophrenia, addiction, dementias, cognitive decline, traumatic brain injuries, impulse disorders, and disorders of sexual preference.
In addition, the Service works to support people who present with various other intellectual, behavioural and emotional challenges for which different treatment approaches, or indeed multiple approaches, may be required.
Additionally, there are a variety of offence related issues that require additional treatments.
The Prison Service Psychology Service are proactively reducing time spent doing assessment, and in turn are increasing the amount of time allocated to intervention. This includes the fast track of prisoners into certain interventions directly from referral based on file review and consultation with the multidisciplinary team. It also includes the introduction of rolling groups in order to improve access to psychological therapy. A referral for some of these interventions may be opened on the system on the day it takes place and so this substantially decreases the average waiting times.
Bearing in mind that there are various factors that can contribute to the length of time an individual might be waiting to access services, the data presented below is an average of waiting times (in days) for all categories, excluding triage assessments, across each institution since 2015.
Average waiting time (in days) to access psychological services (excluding triage assessment) across prisons.
|
- |
2015 |
2016 |
2017 |
2018 |
2019 |
2020 |
2021 |
2022 |
2023 |
|
Arbour Hill Prison |
160.8 |
48.1 |
64.7 |
364.2 |
251.5 |
220.3 |
343.1 |
113.5 |
40.2 |
|
Castlerea Prison |
126.6 |
129.2 |
157.7 |
252.5 |
230.8 |
137.2 |
164.2 |
85.6 |
30.6 |
|
Cloverhill Remand Prison |
27.0 |
57.5 |
28.1 |
37.7 |
83.4 |
68.6 |
58.2 |
87.1 |
43.9 |
|
Cork Prison |
49.3 |
96.9 |
110.5 |
55.6 |
81.5 |
40.6 |
196.2 |
67.5 |
42.3 |
|
Limerick Prison |
116.6 |
55.4 |
158.0 |
147.2 |
304.4 |
172.0 |
399.8 |
89.0 |
43.5 |
|
Loughan House* |
14.0 |
126.4 |
31.5 |
37.0 |
1.0 |
12.7 |
8.7 |
||
|
Midlands Prison |
195.5 |
267.6 |
280.5 |
226.4 |
319.9 |
266.7 |
201.6 |
123.9 |
41.1 |
|
Mountjoy Prison ( Female) |
3.9 |
79.4 |
163.2 |
81.1 |
87.4 |
74.4 |
50.1 |
79.7 |
38.9 |
|
Mountjoy Prison ( Male ) |
66.6 |
182.2 |
129.2 |
339.7 |
370.8 |
173.5 |
350.6 |
245.1 |
36.2 |
|
Portlaoise Prison |
164.3 |
216.7 |
304.5 |
218.2 |
344.6 |
293.2 |
230.6 |
179.5 |
5.2 |
|
Shelton Abbey |
54.8 |
0.0 |
****1,594.0 |
11.9 |
92.8 |
23.9 |
4.2 |
332.0 |
30.9 |
|
St. Patricks** Institution |
53.0 |
||||||||
|
Training Unit *** |
45.9 |
33.2 |
20.7 |
20.7 |
|||||
|
Wheatfield Prison |
91.8 |
138.7 |
196.0 |
331.1 |
285.2 |
261.3 |
279.3 |
130.2 |
38.5 |
*There was no psychologist assigned to Loughan House during the years 2019, 2020, 2021, a part time Psychologist was assigned to Loughan House from December 22 to November 23.
**St Patrick’s Institution closed on 7th April 2017 however the transition of prisoners commenced in 2013. The 2016 data in respect of St Patrick’s would be included in the Mountjoy data, there was no psychologist assigned to St Patrick’s from May 2016.
*** Training Unit closed temporarily for repurposing.
****Highlighting how nuanced this data is, this figure is so high because of one particular individual’s waiting time for an MBT group, the referral was created in 2022 but backdated to 2017 as that is when he had completed a previous intervention. As such the overall time for Shelton Abbey’s average waiting time is inflated.
The Irish Prison Service also provides various services for prisoners with addiction in a structured, safe and professional way in line with international best practice. It is estimated that up to 70% of the prisoner population have addiction issues. The Irish Prison Service takes these issues very seriously and spends a sum in excess of €1M per annum on the provision of an addiction counselling service in Irish Prisons. This service is supplied by Merchants Quay Ireland (MQI) who provide a prison-based addiction counselling service across the entire Irish Prison Service estate - with the exception of Arbour Hill Prison and the Training Unit where there was less clinical need for such a service, however this is currently being reviewed.
MQI do not currently record how long people wait to meet with an addiction counsellor for ongoing intervention, separate from an initial assessment. There are many local variables unique to each prison which can influence how long someone could remain on the waiting list. These factors include access, whether they are on remand, their expected date of release, where in the prison they reside (e.g. are they on protection or non-protection), and the individual work schedule of the person in custody themselves.
The Irish Prison Service also works closely with Alcoholic Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous who provide support to people in custody, and the Irish Prison Service has also recently engaged Gambling Awareness Trust in relation to interventions for those with gambling addiction. The Irish Prison Service is also in the process of implementing additional supports to people with addiction and mental health difficulties, including the 'Recovery College' model which provides education, training and workshops, and the introduction of an Addiction Studies course.
