A seriously mentally ill prisoner had to wait nearly six years before being admitted to the Central Mental Hospital.

A teenage boy who barricaded himself into a home in Letterkenny for a number of days with access to firearms and ammunition is receiving medical assessment at a Garda station in Co Donegal.

There were 7,420 episodes of restrictive practices reported in 2017 and 7,464 in 2018.

The Mental Health Commission estimates that there has been a 57% increase in the use of restrictive practices on inpatients in Ireland's mental health facilities over the last yen years.

All too often people with complex and challenging needs end up in prison because it is the only service with no waiting list, a mental health expert has said.

The Central Mental Hospital broke its approved capacity of female patients last month because of a shortage of space.

The woman described to gardaí how she held the pillow over the child's face as she struggled and screamed. Her toddler called out for her daddy and finally let out a sigh, she said.

A man has been jailed for punching a garda sergeant in the head when he was being served with a barring order secured against him by his mother.

The new National Forensic Mental Health facility will be equipped with 13 high-tech scanners at a cost of €750,000 to prevent drugs, weapons and other contraband being smuggled into serious offenders who have been deemed legally insane.

A judge has ordered a man facing criminal charges to be admitted into a psychiatric unit and to be placed on a waiting list for treatment at the Central Mental Hospital after his solicitor admitted he had struggled to get him the treatment he needs while in custody.

A man who attempted to murder a teenager at a popular Dublin hiking spot and assaulted a psychiatric nurse by attempting to strangle him with a sock has been given permission to move out of his mother's home.

The siblings of landlord Thomas O'Gorman brutally killed by his tenant Saverio Bellante have launched a High Court challenge against a coroner's refusal to conduct an "enhanced" inquest into his death.

A 32-year-old man found to have been insane when he beat his neighbour to death with a crowbar, posted about 2,000 videos of himself reading the bible on YouTube, the Central Criminal Court has heard.

A 75-year-old man has had his conviction for raping his granddaughter quashed after reports were obtained to determine whether he was fit to stand trial at the Central Criminal Court more than a year ago.

Legal representatives for the two boys convicted of murdering 14-year-old schoolgirl Ana Kriegel will be given parts of one another's probation reports, a judge at the Central Criminal Court has decided.

A judge has ordered that a man is unfit to stand trial for an alleged sexual assault on a child because of a mental disorder.

A judge has said he will have little option but to release a man likely to be found not guilty by reason of insanity unless state services can provide the acute in-patient mental health care he needs.

The parents of a man beaten to death by a neighbour who was undergoing a psychotic episode have told the Central Criminal Court that it is "unacceptable" that someone so dangerous and known to mental health services was living just a few doors from their "defenceless" son.

The solicitor for Tansanqa Radise told a judge that his client could not get a bed at the HSE's Carraig Mór centre in Cork because he had an address in Dublin.

Richard McLaughlin, with an address at The Laurels, Woodtown Lodge, Sligo is charged with murdering Jimmy 'James' Loughlin on February 24, 2018.

"He was pushing close to me and breathing on me. I was terrified."

Mental health professionals assessing the two boys convicted of murdering 14-year-old schoolgirl Ana Kriegel may interview the boys' parents, the Central Criminal Court heard today.

A 50-year-old woman with schizophrenia has been committed to the Central Mental Hospital (CMH), after being deemed unfit to stand trial for murder.