FAMILIES and professionals dealing with people with learning disabilities are failing to report criminal acts by those in their care because of a lack of supports and services to deal with the problem.

AS YOU read this at least 35 — but maybe as many as 90 — citizens of this State are in specialist care in Britain because we have no place to offer them refuge from the terrible disadvantage of their birth.

DOZENS of intellectually disabled people who commit crimes are being sent abroad for specialist care because the state has nowhere to put them.

CHILDREN’S charity Barnardos is claiming the Government has an “unprecedented opportunity” in today’s Budget to improve services for the estimated 90,000 children suffering from psychological illnesses.

Patients admitted against their will to psychiatric hospitals can have their cases independently reviewed from today.

The implementation of the final part of the Government's 2001 Metal Health Act is due to begin tomorrow.

Standards of care for mental health patients are to improve within weeks, it was promised today.

THE Ombudsman for Children is to brief the United Nations on the urgent need to end the placing of Irish children in adult psychiatric units at a briefing in Geneva next month.

MORE than 3,100 children and teenagers are waiting up to a year to be assessed for psychiatric treatment across the country, latest figures from the health services show.

A RADICAL overhaul of mental health services that will see the closure of the country’s remaining mental hospitals and the money from their sale spent on developing community-based mental health care will begin this year.

I MUST concur with Catherine Shanahan’s report headlined ‘Lack of adolescent psychiatrists highlighted’ (Irish Examiner, September 20).

DESPITE one in five children suffering from mental or behavioural disorders, Ireland has just one third of the required number of child and adolescent psychiatrists.

The Irish College of Psychiatrists has called for major improvements in Ireland's mental health services for children and adolescents.

THE harrowing words spoken by the father of 28-year-old Sharon Grace, who drowned her daughters before killing herself, go to the heart of an Irish suicide crisis that claims the lives of hundreds of victims every year.

UP TO 1,300 young people will develop psychotic disorders this year, yet there are just 20 inpatient beds available to those who need hospitalisation.

The Irish College of Psychiatrists has called for improved treatment services for people with alcohol abuse problems.

PSYCHIATRISTS have warned the Tánaiste that accountability and quality of care in the mental health services will be compromised under the new Health Service Executive (HSE).

THE Department of Health's forthcoming crackdown on alcohol advertising was a "whitewash," an alcohol expert said yesterday.

Opposition to Government proposals to locate the Central Mental Hospital in the new Mountjoy prison complex escalated today.

PSYCHIATRIC services to deal with a section of the country’s teenagers are seriously inadequate, the Mental Health Commission said yesterday.

The National Disability Authority today welcomed the Irish College of Psychiatrists' proposals on plans for a service model to develop of psychiatric services for people with intellectual disability.

THE Government has admitted psychiatric services for people with intellectual disabilities are under-resourced and underdeveloped.

Psychiatric services for people with intellectual disabilities in the Irish Republic are greatly under-resourced and underdeveloped, it was claimed today.

Dan Buckley and Colette Keane

TREATMENT for mentally-ill patients is “in a deplorable state” because of inadequate funding, the Irish College of Psychiatrists (ICP) said yesterday.

Evelyn Ring

Amnesty International has accused the Government of neglecting the mental health of Irish children.

I RECENTLY dispatched my third letter to the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell, TD requesting a meeting to discuss the concerns of psychiatrists around the Criminal Law (Insanity) Bill 2002. The Irish College of Psychiatrists is surprised and disappointed that this meeting has not been arranged.

A MAJOR review of gun ownership is planned before the end of the year as the Abbeylara Tribunal begins probing the shooting dead of John Carthy by garda marksmen.

PSYCHIATRIC patients in many areas of the country are receiving below par services because of large variations in regional funding, the Irish College of Psychiatrists (ICP) has said.