Pictures released first in the Irish Examiner show patients sleeping on the floor of the Psychiatric Unit in University Hospital Waterford.

The Government has defended the standard of care in Galway’s main psychiatric unit after the country’s work safety watchdog was called in over complaints about staffing levels.

THE Ennis General Hospital bed numbers were reduced from 125 to 88 in 1988 under the Fianna Fáil Government. There followed a period of further removals of ancillary services.

NURSES are calling on a Dáil committee to investigate a “disastrous” new psychiatric unit, which they say will cost taxpayers about €750,000 to rectify.