Minister of State for Mental Health Jim Daly says the forum will give the Oireachtas greater say on mental health issues.

A child in need of in-patient psychiatric care was placed in an adult unit for three weeks even though there was an empty bed in a nearby child and adolescent unit — because staff were unaware of the vacancy.

Children and teenagers needing psychiatric care are being denied admission to mental health facilities while beds lie idle.

GOVERNMENT plans to treble the number of mentally ill prisoners treated in the Central Mental Hospital have still not been implemented more than three years later, it has emerged.

It is 22 years since the almost Dickensian conditions of mentally-ill patients were identified as being in radical need of an overhaul.