{"id":36652,"date":"2023-01-27T04:24:24","date_gmt":"2023-01-27T04:24:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/?p=36652"},"modified":"2023-01-27T04:24:24","modified_gmt":"2023-01-27T04:24:24","slug":"fears-for-implementation-of-report-on-mental-health-and-addiction-in-justice-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/27\/fears-for-implementation-of-report-on-mental-health-and-addiction-in-justice-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Fears for implementation of report on mental health and addiction in justice system"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ad_1]<\/p>\n

Kathleen Lynch said that while she believed the Department of Justice and the Department of Health were \u201ccommitted\u201d to implementation, the issue had to compete for space amid daily or weekly crises in both departments.<\/p>\n

\n

The former Labour TD for Cork North Central said the Government had welcomed the report of the High Level Task Force<\/a> (HLTF) on mental health, addiction, and the criminal justice system, published last September.<\/p>\n

The 230-page report was split into three areas: Preventing and diverting people with mental health and addiction from entering the justice system; providing them with proper treatment when incarcerated in prison or the Central Mental Hospital; and providing the necessary services on release and in the community.<\/p>\n

Speaking at a seminar organised by the School of Law in UCC, Ms Lynch, the task force chair, said this was \u201ca whole-of-society issue\u201d.<\/p>\n

The former minister of state for mental health said: \u201cIt is in our interest that we don’t have people falling into criminality because of services that haven\u2019t been provided.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\"Kathleen

Kathleen Lynch said that while she believed the Department of Justice and Department of Health were ‘committed’ to implementation, the issue had to compete for space amid crises in both departments.\u00a0Picture: Denis Minihane<\/figcaption><\/picture>\n

Fiona Donson of UCC School of Law said there were a \u201clot of questions\u201d around implementation and resources.<\/p>\n

Director of the Probation Service Mark Wilson and Chief Superintendent Gerry Roche, who chaired two of three task force sub-groups, accepted these were issues.<\/p>\n

Chief Supt Roche said the HSE was in a \u201cstate of flux all the time\u201d with various issues, and that An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na was \u201cno different\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ms Lynch said implementation was discussed in the task force.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would have the same worries about implementation that other people have. That is not to say that the Department of Justice or the Department of Health are not committed to implementing this\u00a0\u2014 we believe they are.<\/p>\n

“But, as Gerry [Roche] rightly says, there\u2019s a crisis in the Department of Health every day. I’ve been there, I know.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n There’s a crisis in the Department of Justice every week, whether it’s staff shortages, whether it’s an incident. So where is the space then for this? Who is going to drive this on?<\/span>\n <\/p>\n

She said while the task force did not make recommendations on implementation or resources, it did set timelines of 12-18 months, two and a half years, and five years,\u00a0 which she said most people thought were \u201cvery, very tight\u201d.<\/p>\n

The task force also recommended a dedicated office, with the sole aim of driving the recommendations.<\/p>\n

She said everyone they engaged with wanted all the various services to work together, collaboratively.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not as easy as you would think,” she said. “There are cultural issues. There are territorial issues. There are budgetary issues.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Wilson said that while this year\u2019s mental health budget, at \u20ac1.3bn, was the highest ever, it represented just 5% of the HSE\u2019s total budget, when the World Health Organization recommended mental health should be 12% of the total health budget.<\/p>\n

He also said a major issue for the HSE was trying to hire staff, a problem shared by the Prison Service and the Probation Service.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a real problem as to how we\u2019re going to build up capacity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

[ad_2]
\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[ad_1] Kathleen Lynch said that while she believed the Department of Justice and the Department…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-cj-system"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36652"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36652\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36654,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36652\/revisions\/36654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}