Callely under 24-hour observation at Mountjoy over mental health

Ivor Callely is under round-the-clock observation in Mountjoy Prison’s acute mental health unit.

The 56-year-old is being cared for in the high-support unit — a 10-bed therapeutic section manned by medical and psychiatric staff.

According to the Prison Service, the unit “provides expert, supportive, short-term input for prisoners who are in an acutely disturbed phase of a mental illness or require observation for a physical illness”.

Callely, from Clontarf, was due to be transferred to Wheatfield Prison in west Dublin from the committal unit of Mountjoy on Wednesday morning.

The former Fianna Fáil junior minister and senator was sentenced to five months in prison on Monday for expenses fraud to the tune of a little over €4,000.

He spent his first 24 hours in Mountjoy’s committal unit as he awaited a decision on where he would serve out his time.

While his first night had been described by prison staff as going off uneventfully, sources yesterday said medical staff became concerned for his mental health on Wednesday.

They consulted with prison officers and a decision was made to bring him into the high-support unit.

“There were serious concerns over his reaction to being in prison,” said one source. “He was not handling it very well.”

The unit was established in December 2010 and deals with around 100 prisoners in a given year. It is a short-term unit, and inmates can spend as little as a few days there to a number of weeks.

Research by the Central Mental Hospital and the Department of Psychiatry in Trinity College Dublin found that 29% of the 96 inmates at the unit whom they studied were diagnosed with a major mental illness.

A fifth required short-term support for crisis intervention, but did not have a major mental illness.

A further 10% were deemed to be feigning symptoms to seek refuge in the unit. Some 7% had a personality disorder and 4% had a learning disability.

The study said 35% had reported psychotic symptoms and 28% were at immediate risk of self-harm.

Callely’s condition will be reviewed daily by staff who will decide when he can go back to the general prison.

Prison Service bosses will then decide whether to continue his transfer to Wheatfield, where he was set to go to a normal section and possibly share a cell.