Overcrowded prisons - Inhuman conditions

NOT for the first, or tenth, time we report on overcrowded prisons today.

Along with deeply disturbing reports on conditions in psychiatric facilities, many of which were described as being unfit for human use, published over Christmas, these are another indicator of the reality of Ireland in 2010. We pretend to be a caring society where the needs of all those entrusted to the State’s care are protected but report after report tells us otherwise.

Twice last year we had to confront the horrors of our past. Our response was animated and tearful; we were determined that such atrocities would never recur.

Yet other atrocities are committed in our names every day — people condemned to appalling psychiatric wards, prisoners in four-to-a-cell time-bombs.

To add insult to injury it is possible that some of the people mentioned in the Ryan or Murphy reports are the very people enduring horrible psychiatric wards and overcrowded prisons today.

Will we ever change? Will we ever learn?