State responsibility - Cuts hurting those most in need

REPEATED warnings have been given in these columns that the most vulnerable people on the margins of society will become the innocent victims of government cutbacks in the recession now gripping the country. Unfortunately, mounting evidence suggests those warnings were all too accurate.

Damning reports today and earlier this week give rise to serious questions that the state must answer.

How can this Government justify a situation where conditions in psychiatric hospitals are so inhumane that from next February three have been ordered not to admit any patients by the Mental Health Commission?