I think the time has come when the Minister ought to give us some kind of report, from an expert commission, on the stage which therapeusis in these insane asylums has reached in this country. There is a popular impression abroad that insane asylums in this country are availed of for nothing except purposes of detention. All over the world very considerable progress has been made in curative treatment for persons of unsound mind, and I think it would be a consolation to a great many people, the relatives of afflicted people in these institutions, to know what stage our institutions have arrived at. I would direct the Minister's special attention to recent improvements in the treatment of G.P.I. There is a certain form of mania which has recently become amenable to treatment by insulin shock, a very prevalent form of unsoundness of mind in this country, and if curative treatment were availed of this problem might be very materially mitigated in its present form. There is another extremely important matter that has to be raised. It is one of the utmost possible delicacy, but one which I feel it to be my duty to bring under the Minister's attention because the Vote in question deals with an asylum for the maintenance and detention of criminal lunatics. This is a case where there is divided authority as regards the persons committed to the institution. Most of the persons committed to it come first under the charge of the Minister for Justice, and when they leave his jurisdiction they are handed over to Dundrum, and come under the jurisdiction of the Minister for Local Government and Public Health. Therefore, what I am about to say might appear more relevant to the Vote for the Department of Justice, but really it is not.
There is a type of case which, unfortunately, comes before our criminal courts from time to time of crimes arising from unnatural offences of one kind or another. It is manifest to me that these cases are cases which are psychopathic in their nature and do require something more than restriction and detention in an ordinary jail. I would suggest to the Minister that there should be added to this asylum an annexe where cases falling within that category could be sent not only for detention but for cure. Some Deputies may say that this is a matter that could have been more properly raised by way of private representations. I have raised it in another form in a confidential way, and was there informed that it was too wide a topic for consideration and must be postponed. Therefore, I feel driven to mention it in the Dáil because I think it is a problem of such immense gravity that it does not permit of postponement and ought to be attended to forthwith. I do not ask the Minister, who is not an expert naturally in a problem of this kind, to undertake to deal with it on his own authority. I shall be quite content if he will say that he will advise the Minister for Justice to set up a commission of qualified jurists and alienists to examine this problem, and assures the House that if that commission recommends the establishment of an annexe at Dundrum for the purpose of dealing with this type of case he will use his influence with the Executive Council to secure whatever funds or authority may be necessary to carry into effect the recommendations of the commission.
