Cormac O'Keeffe: Ireland still 'tolerates the intolerable' in its prisons

A European torture watchdog report has highlighted the worsening treatment of prisoners with psychiatric illnesses in Ireland, writes Security Correspondent Cormac O'Keeffe

The Council of Europe Committee for the Prevention of Torture told Irish authorities that some of these situations could amount to “inhuman and degrading treatment”. File picture: Eddie O'Hare

Prisoners with serious mental illnesses naked in cells, lying in their own excrement. No showers or proper records of any intervention, including food.

Inmates with similar difficulties wandering idly around units or yards, some of them completely neglected and living in squalor.