Children were admitted to a dirty adult psychiatric unit with known choking hazards, according to the Mental Health Commission.

The number of children presenting to Temple Street Hospital has increased more than 500% in ten years — and many are presenting with suicidal ideation.

A Vision for Change – a strategy document published in 2006 that set out the direction of mental health services in Ireland - recommended the establishment of 48 rehabilitation teams based on the current population.

Eight children were admitted to an adult psychiatric unit in Waterford despite multiple warnings to the HSE that the facility is unsuitable for youngsters.

Minister for Health Simon Health has defended his record in the area of mental health services and said he has been working “extremely hard” for the past three years to make up for “decades of neglect” of the service.

The Mental Health Commission has highlighted common and “quite astounding” deficiencies across the country in mental health service provision, from Cork to Donegal.

As with previous reports, the latest edition benchmarks progress, or the lack thereof, within mental health services against recommendations in the 2006 A Vision for Change document, launched by the government of the day.

Jess Casey More than 1,200 people with severe mental illnesses are at risk of abuse, having been left in “mini-institutions with little prospect of receiving rehabilitation” into independent living, the Mental Health Commission has found.

A number of centres remain unsuitable and not fit for purpose.

The Mental Health Commission has said it is utterly unacceptable and a breach of human rights that people with severe mental illness are being denied essential healthcare services which could prolong their lives.

Three out of four mental health centres inspected failed to reach acceptable standards of cleanliness and maintenance, the inspector of mental health services has revealed.

The controversial placing of children in an adult psychiatric unit at University Hospital Limerick is continuing despite the practice being condemned by the Mental Health Commission.

The Mental Health Commission has said the buck stops with the Government and health minister after its latest annual report said continuing failings in the mental health system indicate “a lack of interest and motivation” from those in authority.

Patients with bed sores, patients sleeping on mattresses, lack of access to therapies — all feature in the litany of failings criticised by inspectors in the latest reports from the Mental Health Commission.

Children continue to be admitted to adult mental health units because of a shortage of beds in child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS).

More than 80 children were admitted to adult in-patient psychiatric units last year in a practice condemned by campaigners as "shocking".

Serious concerns were today raised about the condition of almost a third of the country’s large psychiatric hospitals with many wards battling to keep damp and mould at bay.

CONCERNS were raised by a state agency that teenagers needing mental health services are being detained by court order in a locked facility simply because they can’t access help elsewhere.

THE Government’s failure to match the promise of a new era for psychiatric patients with better services for the most vulnerable in society illustrates the cynical reality that politicians see no votes in mental health.

AN EXPERT group has called for immediate action to ensure the health system tracks seriously disturbed persons like David Brennan who murdered his baby nephew hours after he refused to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital.