Mental illnessis a condition not a crime

HAVING been a social worker in the field of mental health care, both in Ireland and Britain, I welcomed your well-balanced editorial (Irish Examiner, July 24) in which you exposed “the scandal of using Irish prisons as ‘psychiatric waiting rooms’ — the equivalent of A&E trolleys in overcrowded hospitals” and the failure by the State to address the problem of mental illness in society.

How very true.

People are not particularly interested in what happens to prisoners until it is brought home to them that there is such an archaic approach to dealing with people who are often extremely distressed, ill and in need of the benefits of advances in medical care, all of which the rest of the population has, but which these people are clearly unable to access.