Committee Reports > List of Committees > Dáil > 1964 > Committee of Public Accounts > Report - Appropriation Accounts 1962 - 1963

APPENDIX VII.

MAINTENANCE OF PRISONERS IN DISTRICT MENTAL HOSPITALS.

Cléireach don Choiste Um Chuntais Phoiblí.

Vote No. 25—Prisons.

At the proceedings of the Committee on the 14th May, 1964, I undertook to supply information with regard to the expenditure under Subhead K—Maintenance of prisoners in District Mental Hospitals.

The total number of prisoners to whose maintenance in district mental hospitals the expenditure related was 113. The hospitals in which the prisoners were maintained and the number of prisoners involved were:—

The majority of these prisoners fall into the categories of persons found guilty but insane or found unfit to plead or certified to be insane while on remand and are long-term in the sense that their discharge or the disposal of the charges against them must await their recovery to sanity. The only case which can really be regarded as short-term is that of the prisoner who becomes insane while undergoing sentence; he ceases to be a criminal lunatic when the period of his sentence expires. As the expenditure under the Subhead relates only to persons who are insane it does not cover the treatment of prisoners who are not certifiable but who are in need of psychiatric attention. Ordinarily the prison services available are adequate to meet the needs of such prisoners but where expenses in relation to necessary attendance at outside hospitals have to be incurred these are borne on Subhead J of the Prisons Vote.

The expenses of the maintenance of patients in the Central Mental Hospital Dundrum are borne on Vote No. 53. The daily average number of patients maintained in the Hospital in the year 1962/63 was 89.

Department of Justice.

24 Meitheamh, 1964.